I don't know about implementation of loans. The other governments had mechanisms for loans, and those were typically state-level governments in, say, Oregon or Maine. The applicability to Canada at the federal level may be more problematic, but we thought it might be worth exploring. I'm not sure, in the present context of the federal government, whether loans would be an option or not, but I think they could be explored.
Again, I think the British essentially had a semi-removed fund from government, set up with a large pot of money, and loans were distributed from that. Then, as loans were repaid into what I would call a revolving fund, there could be some separation from the annual tyranny of capital funding. Going back to the annual tyranny of capital funding, I see it happen at the federal level, the provincial level, and the municipal level, where our priorities are not for capital but something else, and capital budgets get cut and maintenance isn't done—or the O and M budgets or capital budgets get cut, which are usually separate.