Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen, for [Technical difficulty—Editor].
First of all, I want to thank the federal government and the New Horizons program for having funded a number of initiatives that CHATS was able to deliver to increase support to our clients—to seniors and their caregivers. The value of those programs can't be understated. Funding was available through the pandemic to enable us, for example, to quickly switch from our in-person programming to offering virtual programming, Internet connections, tablets and literacy training to keep seniors connected through the time of the pandemic. We would not have had the resources had it not been for that special funding.
Moving forward, we know that we rely on volunteer support for a lot of the services we provide. Were it not for volunteers, we couldn't possibly reach and serve as many seniors and their caregivers as we do.
It's not the only solution. Often this funding is provided one time. We can set up a program but we need to be able to continue to operate it, especially once we've developed expectations among our clients that the program will be available to them. The question of capacity needs to be built into the way the program funding is structured, with a recognition that the ongoing operating costs must be factored in as well.
We know that volunteers are a very important resource to us. The pandemic showed us that when we had to appreciate that our volunteers—many of whom are seniors themselves—had to shutter for a long period of time. That resource wasn't available to us anymore, but the expectation and the need for the services to continue was still there.
From a capacity standpoint, we appreciate the one-time funding, but we also need to look at how we can sustain the resources and the capacity to continue to offer those services.