Sure. Thank you very much, Sean, for the question.
The distinction is basically as simple as this. As I said a minute ago, these are unrecoverable losses. There's no way, no mechanism that municipalities have to say, “Well, if we impose this or a new way of putting this forward to our residents to pay the property tax, for example, we can recoup that money at some point.” We can't run deficits. Yes, theoretically, we could look at ways, potentially, of borrowing money, but how are we going to repay that?
That's where it really lies, and that's why it's such a crisis today. It lies in the fact that, as we discussed briefly with the member from Winnipeg, the fiscal framework for municipalities is broken. This is no time to address that, however, so what other avenue do we have than to basically plead with our federal government?
We are not only all the same taxpayers. We represent the same Canadians. Municipalities are on the front line on a daily basis, delivering the most fundamental services to our residents—the police and fire departments, the services they depend on. When we don't have the revenue coming in, we have to start looking at ways to cut the budgets we face. That is not a very pretty picture.