One quick comment I could make is that harbour authorities have a lease with the federal government on the federal facility, and in that lease it states quite clearly that, as volunteers, we are responsible for operating costs. That's the sum total right there. When you look at economic viability, if we have a harbour with ten vessels or six vessels and they're generating $2,000 or $3,000 and they're covering their operating costs, they've met the basic commitment in what they are trying to do as volunteers, in my opinion. But in the vast majority of cases, you have these harbour authorities that are well in excess of that and they are contributing and it would be on a project-by-project basis how many dollars. It doesn't all just go into operating. Moneys go from harbour authorities into projects. In our region, there are some that have put in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them may have put in $2,000, but it's just as important to that harbour and far and above what the requirement is or what's required in the lease.
And we are continually looking for money. We personally made a presentation to our municipality, which we had never done before. We got $100,000 over five years to contribute. That's $100,000 we can now put somewhere else in the small craft harbours program, from another source. So that benefits everybody. We are continually striving to find these dollars.
I really hope the message around the table is that we have more than done our job. What we need is A-base funding. We need $50 million annually in A-base funding. Let's give it to the small craft harbours. Emergency funds and pots of money like we just saw are good. We were starved to death for years. Thank you very much. I think Lawrence mentioned $40 million more earlier. That would be great. We'd take it. But if we want to do the right job for everybody's benefit and for the taxpayers of Canada, we need consistent funding over a longer period of time to plan properly and spend wisely. Pots of money are great, but don't starve us for five years or ten years and then give us a pot of money. It just doesn't work. With anything, you need to know what you have coming so you can plan.