Thank you for your question.
Project-based funding is great when it works. When it's not predictable, when we have to wait almost three years for it to come, we are losing important staff, who take with them much knowledge, many skills, and networking. That diminishes our capacity to continue with our programs to meet the needs of Canadians.
We do get other funding from other sources, such as businesses and foundations, and they all tend to be project-based as well. That creates a situation where we're waiting between projects, and if there is a dip or we don't have funding for six months, what do we do in that time? How do we pay the bills? How do we keep our knowledgeable staff there? How do we keep our programs going that are currently running? How do we keep the training and the professional development and all those things in place?
In fact, last year our outgoing executive director was here, Amanda Beazley, and she has since moved on because we couldn't offer her permanent employment. She took with her a huge knowledge of the literacy field, and it's a huge loss for our organization. That's what's happening I think with all Atlantic literacy organizations. We can't keep the people we need to keep there to lead the literacy....