There have been some comments in the news, by the way, that the government is spending all this money on the War of 1812 but we have other things that have needs. All the money we're spending on the War of 1812 and the commemoration thereof is from existing Government of Canada funds.
Whether it's the Canada arts presentation fund, the building communities through arts and heritage program, or the Canada cultural spaces fund, what we've done is take existing funds and assess what we expect the demand will be from grassroots organizations across the country. We had a number that we thought would be the proportionate number of asks.
Then, of course, you triage those asks and you ask how many are really central to the goal of commemorating the War of 1812. Then you try to divide how much of that money is going to be required for physical infrastructure, for re-enactments, for educational initiatives, and so on. You come up with a ballpark number and then you have to divide it.
We've taken existing Government of Canada programs and have fenced off an amount of money in each of them for applications for funding for the War of 1812. We're not doing extra funding for the War of 1812 as opposed to doing extra funding for other things; we've taken existing funding, and we've fenced it off for the demand.
Local organizations that are requesting funding for the War of 1812 should certainly contact their members of Parliament, contact me directly, or contact the department. In each of those funding envelopes, there are funds reserved.
I say this all the time, by the way, to organizations that may be here, that may have their representatives here, or that may be paying attention to this conversation: contact the Department of Canadian Heritage. Contact us before you apply for funding. This isn't just within the context of 1812. Contact the department before you apply for funding so that you can design your event, your commemoration, and your plans in concert with existing Government of Canada funding envelopes so they can move forward together. Don't build an event and hope that the Government of Canada.... Moving the machinery of government sometimes is like turning a battleship around. The smarter thing to do is to work with us from the beginning so you can develop your event so that it qualifies for funds as you move forward.
If people are planning specific events for the War of 1812, I would encourage them to contact the Department of Canadian Heritage. We will sit them down with an official from the department and will work through their application from the beginning.