Thank you for that, and I do have to give the federal government credit, because there are many programs that use a base-plus approach. What that essentially entails is a base level of funding for all jurisdictions for an initiative, and then allocating the remaining funding on more of a per capita basis. It obviously would result in more funds for large jurisdictions, but it ensures funding for the smaller jurisdictions. The territories, and some of the smaller Atlantic provinces feel the same way, often don't have enough to be able to implement programs in a way that has a large impact.
For us in the north, as you mentioned, the cost of delivering programs is often much different from what it is in southern Canada. Also, we're a very large territory, so the economies of scale that might be available in other places just aren't available in the north.
The idea behind base-plus funding is really to provide a base level of funding to every jurisdiction and then allocate the remaining amount. In terms of the value I quoted in my opening comments, with about 40% of the population you can imagine how much Ontario would get out of that kind of model, not that Ontario doesn't need funding but their rounding is more than our funding. With small adjustments by some of the large jurisdictions, it can make an enormous difference for the smaller jurisdictions.