Thank you for your question, Mr. Ste-Marie.
First of all, with respect to the $299 million announced for 2021-2022, I would remind you that this money will be available through the emergency envelope to support the VCS COVID 3 program and there is not a lot of flexibility in that regard. We are still waiting to hear when we will be able to use this money. Confirmation is slow in coming.
So, we were pleasantly surprised by the $567 million announcement. This is close to what we had asked for to adequately address the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Quebec. However, there is uncertainty about how this money will flow to community organizations.
Will this be through the emergency envelopes for the VCS COVID 3 program, or through the regular envelopes?
We are under the impression that the government is offering us premium unleaded gasoline, but telling us to put it in a diesel engine, i.e. they are offering us funding through the emergency envelopes for the VCS COVID 3 program. So we are not making any progress at all.
So, we're hoping that the government will confirm that we're going to be able to use these monies in the same way that we can use the regular Reaching Home envelopes. This will give us a lot more flexibility to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness. We look forward to that announcement.