I think there are two problems, and I think there has been some or partial improvement in one of them. This has been in response to some of the crises that occurred for some organizations in the past, where the funding that went to community organizations would take so long to arrive that they would find themselves getting the cheque in October, and it would all have to be spent by March 31.
Sometimes those delays in funding meant that people had to be laid off; people who might otherwise have been hired for the summer were not hired. It meant that there was work that they were intending to do, but rather than being able to hire somebody locally, because the local firm was too small to be able to turn on a dime and produce the work starting in October, they would have to go to a much larger firm in a big city that would have the resources so they could respond quickly. This meant that rather than strengthening the community, it simply further centralized work away from the community.
Accordingly, Canadian Heritage introduced some changes where, for a number of funding programs, part of the money would go out earlier rather than the entire cheque going out at the end of the whole process.
But I think with project funding of any kind, it is always problematic because there is project funding and there is ongoing funding. I've had a number of conversations with people who've said, “We have project funding until the end of the year, but we're not sure if we're going to be able to keep the organization going when this particular project funding expires.” So it is a serious challenge for a lot of very important community organizations.
