There were 46 councils across the province of Ontario. Most of them focused within a county basis. I happened to work on the eastern Georgian Bay and the Manitoulin councils. The cost including the salaries, office space, meals, and everything, of these full-time coordinators and their support, plus the $10,000 of seed funding, totalled approximately $5 million across all the council areas.
Each council consisted of 10 to 15 people, and these were key people from within their respective communities. They came from across the communities. They weren't directed by OMNR but some guidelines were set and the council coordinators that were provided to them were the people who did their bidding. They got everything and made sure they were within the confines of legislative and policy standards. They garnered $26 million of cash and in kind from outside sources, so $5 million turned into $26 million.
They were able to beat the bushes: corporations, members of the public, fundraisers on an annual basis. Unfortunately, we just vaporized under budget cutbacks.
The net benefit is—I gave you the examples of those other groups, such as the one for elk restoration, the United Walleye Club, or whatever—that they in turn multiplied the effects, because one would engage 10, and 10 would engage 10 more.
Suddenly the community became engaged, instead of sitting back and waiting for big brother government to do it for them, as that wasn't happening. What was happening, though, was that governments only had the capacity to react to issues—that's where we ended up—and they have even less at this point in time.
You engage and work together with the public, support them with enough resources to maintain them and move forward, and you achieve some very solid results.