It could. The rescuing of physical material would usually fall under Parks Canada. At Heritage...if they uncover something and they want to have an event to commemorate their finding something and to draw people's attention to it, we can fund that. I'm thinking about infrastructure in general.
We also have the cultural spaces fund, which is physical infrastructure. That's $30 million per year across the country and that's not a lot of money when you think about the size of Canada. It's $30 million per year for physical infrastructure. The average grant that comes out of that is about $150,000 per year, and that usually goes to things like fire suppression equipment, new seats in theatres, or new stained glass windows. If they find something physical importance that they want to incorporate into a new infrastructure component of a facility, then that's something we could fund.
It can't come from a member of Parliament, but if an organization wants to apply for funding for a physical infrastructure improvement of cultural significance, you'd do it through the cultural spaces fund. I always tell people—this is for all members—that if somebody has a project like that, don't design your project. Make an application and hope for the best. Get rejected, get frustrated, come back, and then go through this endless process.
We have regional offices at the Department of Canadian Heritage. I always tell people to sit down with the department and the bureaucracy first. This is where members of Parliament have a role. If somebody has an idea, they'll come to you. You can come to me and we'll get a regional person from the Department of Canadian Heritage to sit down with the proponent that has this kind of project, and we design the project so that it fits the criteria of the program. This way, we can get rid of the back-and-forth, which only frustrates local and small organizations that are volunteer organizations.
These organizations--where the president is also the treasurer is also the accountant and is also the acting lawyer--don't have the capacity for all of this stress and paperwork. Sit down with us, if you have these organizations for the Lachine Canal or others sit down with you, and sit down with the Department of Canadian Heritage. Find a project. Make it fit the program and move forward. That's far more efficient and has a much higher success rate.