I will try to answer your question, Mr. Angus.
I am very familiar with the four components of the Museums Assistance Program, or MAP. The program is made up of four components, but in actual fact or in the field, things work out very differently. Let me give you an example.
In Quebec, about one application in three to the MAP is accepted, and I think the percentage is about the same for the rest of Canada. In the last fiscal year, the vast majority of the grants or contributions were less than the amounts requested. The requests are never accepted in full, and we are never given any explanation for this. So only one application in three is accepted, and it is accepted in part only.
As Mr. Vadeboncoeur said, peer review boards, like almost all committees, do two things. They draw up a list of priority projects for the minister who, of course, has the final say. That is as it should be. Then they establish other projects that are on hold. These are not projects that remain in application baskets; they are projects that are extremely interesting, but that cannot be considered priorities.
If we do not draw on these lists of projects on hold, and if the subsidies are below the amount requested, where is the money? If there is money left over, why is it not being used? In light of our analysis, the problem seems to have do to in large part with closed budgetary envelopes. These are reserves based on territorial divisions, the nature of various client groups or certain components compared to others; in this case we talk about envelopes by component.
If there is money left over in one envelope, for example for one of the components or for one of the territories that have not used the amounts for whatever reason, we think it would be logical that these funds be made available to the general program. In other words, that would make it possible to fund the projects on hold.
We think this is a sort of plumbing or bureaucratic problem, because quite clearly, the amounts being provided fall far below the needs.