Again, I'll come back to what the advance payments program does. We do two things. We guarantee the repayment of the advances, and we pay the interest on the first $100,000. If we go through the year and the producer fails to repay, we go in and pay the bank that gave the money in the first place. We pay on the producer's behalf. The debt becomes a debt due to the crown and we take collection action going forward from there.
In the current legislation, there is a limitation period of six years. We saw an opportunity to provide greater clarity around how that six-year limitation really works and what our ability is beyond that. To do that, we relied on other pieces of legislation. This is where the Canada student loans come in as a model upon which to build what you have here in front of you.
Yes, there are a lot of paragraphs, but the principle is fairly simple. It says that once you acknowledge a debt, the clock starts ticking again on the six years. You go in, you make a payment of whatever, you acknowledge the fact that you owe that money, and the clock starts ticking again on the six years.
The subsequent paragraphs say what constitutes an acknowledgement of that debt. Should it be a payment, a written acknowledgement that you owe the money, or a performance of an obligation under the security agreement? We have a number of provisions under this—and if you wish, I can let Sara go through each one of them—that state, “Okay, if I take this action, it's actually an acknowledgement of debt, and it actually starts the clock ticking again.”