Thank you very much.
Thank you to all of our guests for their testimony.
My questions will be, at the beginning, perhaps exclusively for Mr. Karsten with the FCM. It's very good to see you here. I'm torn over the position you have put forward, Mr. Karsten. I fully appreciate the emergency in which municipalities and virtually everyone else have found themselves in recent weeks, but I do find some of the points made by my colleague Mr. Fragiskatos, and Mr. Poilievre just now, to have some real merit.
I want to focus on the portion of your testimony where you recognized that the province has a role to play.
One thing I'm tossing over in my own mind is the notion that this could be a series of provincial governments appearing before the finance committee and saying, “Look, we're in tough shape.” I know our guest from Newfoundland could probably testify to that effect for his home province. If they came and said, “Some of the operating costs we're accustomed to, such as paying teachers, are something we would like to have the federal government take over”, can you distinguish the ask that municipalities are putting on the table from a situation where the provinces would come up and say, “We've lost a massive source of our revenue too. We're really worried about the future”? Newfoundland has said as much publicly.
I'm curious if you can distinguish that situation for us.