Thank you very much.
We've heard from everyone, and that's great. We have come all this way, and it's great to hear from everybody.
I have just a couple of statements to make, and then I have one question.
First of all, I feel that programs sometimes are very complicated, and I think they should be easily accessed. Sometimes there should be broad parameters established, at least for certain parts of things, so that people can work within those parameters without having to take six months to get something together to apply for something that might just keep the lights on. Programs should be devised to be a little easier to get at.
I do know of various other people in other lines, who, when the money is there, and the program is there, and they've spent six months trying to access that money, still have never found out how to trigger it. If money is to be there, it has to be accessible.
Ever since I've sat around this table, I've heard “long-term sustainable funding”, whether it comes from the CBC or whatever. I know as a businessman I had to look ahead and make sure I could cover my costs. I could project myself ahead to estimate how much money I could make or could potentially make in those times.
Endowments I've already touched on.
Sometimes I think rules and regulations have to be a little less stringent. Sometimes I've heard people say, “Well, you know, if I could just get some government funding”. I've said, “Sometimes what happens when you get government funding is you get all of these other things along with it”. You might, on a $100,000 project, get $10,000 from the government, but then you have to do it the way the government says. So you have to follow all the rules and regulations that come into play to get that funding.
I'll look at one little “for instance”. My office is over in the Justice Building, and across the road there's a heritage building that's going to get a paint job. I happen to have been a painter all my life, and I could have had the place painted by the time they got the scaffolding up and all the protection around and everything like that. That's just the way it goes. That's how far the money goes sometimes.
I live just outside of Stratford, Ontario. We have quite a problem with our museum in Stratford. It's looking for a home. It's been kind of beat up a little wee bit. And I know the library is looking for a home, and the archives. I couldn't even work in the archives. I'd be stuck between the rows, and they'd have to extricate me.