Surely the member of Parliament in any area who receives enough votes to get elected is democratically elected and shouldn't be ignored by the Government of Canada. I find that appalling. We always got this information before, those who were allocated funding and those who weren't.
I want to make one comment to Mr. Lake. My position has been unquestionably consistent through this entire piece in everything I've put out and everything I've said: The old system worked; don't change it--there's no need to change it. I think there are lots of reasons to allow an MP a say and to allow an MP no say. I don't think the MP should pick winners and losers, but I think the old system worked because Service Canada made those decisions at the local level. They knew what was going on. What we've done here is centralized it until it all went off the rails and then they went back to the Liberal formula.They went back to everybody who got grants under the Liberal days and said now you're okay for this year.
There's a fundamental inconsistency. This problem has become an absolute case on how to mismanage a program for political purposes.