On Monday, two days before the federal government's funding cuts to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation take effect -- six women staged a sit-in outside the Ottawa office of Indian and Northern Affairs minister Chuck Strahl.

The six, all from Montreal, pledged to remain there until a decision was made to restore funding to the AHF, but police removed them within an hour, charging them with trespassing.

A group of supporters from both Montreal and Ottawa gathered outside the building, steps from Parliament Hill with signs, banners and a megaphone, protesting the funding cuts and the hypocrisy of a government that apologizes for the residential schools and then within two years withdraws funding for healing programs.