I think it's important. Obviously, to be fair to ACOA, we've had a good working relationship with them—certainly at the officials level, and even at the senior management level. Of course, that relationship has been strained a bit in the last couple of months; but that's normal when these sorts of things happen. We met with ACOA officials on our proposal in June of last year, and most recently in December. We discussed the proposal, went through it in detail and had very productive discussions. Issues were cited in terms of funding availability and the points that have been made on third-party delivery and programming. We've addressed all those issues, as I've done here today, but they did cite funding challenges, as well as other things.
One of the points I made to ACOA in December when the stimulus package was being prepared was that there might be an opportunity there, if something were being prepared for the resource-based sectors, to support CCFI. I didn't get a yes, but I didn't get a no either. It was more, “We'll see.” We have been struggling, and we know it is a challenge, but we've had struggles like this before, going back in our 20-year history. Before my time, we've had issues where we've been close to the edge but never gone over.
I think it's good that an organization like ours has been kept accountable. So every four or five years, it's great to have to come to the table and justify your existence; it keeps you on your toes, so I don't mind that. But we didn't expect a “no” from the minister. No, we didn't expect that.