Yes. Thank you very much for that question. It's a really important and fundamental question.
I think the charitable and non-profit sectors in Canada should be seen and perceived as partners to government. We're helping to deliver services and programs to fill gaps and to respond to local needs. Only someone who's really based in that community has the networks to bring together the resources in that community to address a need that a government, especially the federal government, could never tackle.
“Trust” is a really important word. I think the big issue is multi-year funding. Every grant I have, except for one, is for one year or less. Your timing horizon or planning horizon is always short-term. There's no such thing as a permanent job. Every year starts with zero in the budget. You have to build it up over the course of the year. That uncertainty just takes a toll.
The time on the grants is brutal. Madame Campeau made reference to filling out the form. There's no relation between the amount of money involved and the amount of time involved. If anything, they're in inverse order to each other.
The other thing is the difference between the time you hear about the possibility of having that money and start planning what you could do with it, the time you put in the application, the time you hear back that you've been successful, and the time when the money actually lands and you're able to start. That can be a year in time. That's not a planning horizon that a really small organization like mine can work on. It doesn't bring out the best in any of the organizations that those funding sources support.