When they were promulgated in June 2006 and the current government confirmed the $80 million commitment originally made in Budget 2005, we proceeded to work with the provinces to finalize their plans according to the regulations. We sought both cabinet and Treasury Board authority, and we are currently working through the process we use to transfer money from federal governments to provincial governments.
The process never runs as smoothly as we would like it to. The agreements between two jurisdictions always take some time, but there were several provisions put into the federal government contribution that would assist in not delaying the program--the funding to industry, as it were.
The first was that the funding by provinces to address SRM disposal could be counted as their contribution going back to December 2004. This was to ensure that any province that wanted to proceed immediately to put in measures in anticipation of changes in regulations would not be disadvantaged when it came to receiving federal funding.
The second was that federal government contributions could go back to the date when we had our authorities, which was December.
I am confident in saying that we're in a position of finalizing wording in the agreement with eight of the provinces. The other two will take a little bit longer, first because during an election period it is not common to have federal-provincial agreements pursued, and second because we're still working with Newfoundland on the details of their program.