Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
As I read through the Auditor General's report, a couple of things stood out for me as an ex-municipal councillor for a small municipality. One of the sections on page 10, section 1.18, talked about projects that needed to get under way and how the risk could be assumed by the municipality. Whoever happened to run that individual project could accept the risk, go ahead, and start, if the timeline warranted it. They were looking at a two year timeline plus a bit, if they needed it all. Because the assumption was that as of the 31st of 2011, the deal was done.
Knowing that at the time—not knowing what we hear now from the minister, which is that there may be flexibility—they obviously had a hard date to finish. I recognize that this is more of a comment, because I don't think you have an answer. If you have an answer, it would be wonderful. How many...? There had to have been innumerable projects out there for municipalities that couldn't accept the risk of financing without a signed contract from the federal and provincial governments to leverage the money, because as a past chair of corporate services for a small municipality, I can say that's how we operate most of the time, nine times out of ten, especially if the project is large.
Did you get any feedback at all or am I just making a comment?