When you talk about funding, you have the word “adequate”. It's an interesting word. You're using an adjective to describe funding. Adequate to me would be if you're getting graded on something and you get a C. That's adequate. C is a funny level of funding if it's that important. I'm not sure if that's the best word you want to use. I'm not sure if that's the best adjective, if it's that important, because adequate is just average. That's how it hits me.
When you talk about “funding” and not “project”, I think that's really interesting. When I think of the gas tax, for example, that municipalities get from the federal government, you don't have to apply for it as a project. It comes to you, and you make the decision about how you spend the money. When I was at the municipal level, I can say that we liked the gas tax because we didn't have to apply for a project and we could make the decision. Then you get into how to decide who gets how much. Is it by population or are you going to establish a base?
Let's say one band has 1,000 people and another band has 5,000 or 10,000. How are you going to decide the funding if it's not project-based? I don't like project-based because it doesn't allow you to make the decisions, and you're very clear that you want the groups to make the decisions. Do you have any thoughts as to how you would distribute this money or what basis you would use to distribute it? That's the critical piece when you talk about funding.