What we are trying to do right now is.... Our motto is more or less “Let's not do more of the same with the new money,” so we opened up and we accepted a lot of new applicants. We accepted a lot of new organizations that now receive ongoing funding from the Canada Council, and every year we protect a significant amount—roughly half of all of our budget—for projects and new possibilities that are coming from anywhere in Canada.
This is really important, because we were at a point five years ago where the money was committed on day one and there was not a lot of room for movement. Those who were supported by the Canada Council were very happy, but there were no possibilities to enter the system. What we are doing right now is opening the system more and more. We're multiplying the entry points.
We do a lot of outreach, actually, in Alberta. In every province where we see that there is not enough support at this point, we focus the work. We kind of said to our staff, “You should spend the majority of your time not with the actual clients but with the new possible clients.” We think it's really important, because the demography of Canada has changed, and you're right that there are regions where the level of applications and the level of support from the Canada Council is too low. Our top priority is to make sure that we reverse that situation, but you cannot do it overnight.