Thank you so much, Mr. Coteau, for the kind words and the question.
Having Black-led organizations.... I think we more recently landed on the language of B3 organizations—Black-led, Black-governed and Black serving—as an important way to categorize the organizations that I consider to be our peers in this network.
My other colleague here, Alex, also mentioned an important point: there have been previous rounds of funding that have been allocated or designated for anti-racism initiatives or initiatives that are focused on supporting Black communities, but those funds haven't actually gone to Black-led organizations.
I have gotten many a call over the years from other organizations saying, “Hey, there's a grant due tomorrow. Do you want to partner on it?” Really what they mean is that they can write an application where they receive funds, but we're listed as a partner, so they then leverage our work and our name in order to put forward an application that goes forward for adjudication amongst, if it's federal employees, who aren't as familiar with our communities and who aren't as familiar with the organizations that are actually doing the work on the ground, that have the connections to communities, that understand the issues that our communities are facing and that are doing this work.... What happens is that those well-meaning employees or committee members look at the grants and look at organizations that they're familiar with, which oftentimes can be national organizations, organizations that have been around for a very long time but don't actually serve our community or have connections to our community.
That's why it's really important that there are Black Canadians in the committee processes or the adjudication processes to review these grants, because they're more likely to be (a) familiar with the organizations who are doing this work, and (b) able to scrutinize the ways in which organizations are proposing that they design programs, that they conduct outreach, that they assess their impacts in ways that are reflective of our community's capacity and needs.
It's really important that the community be part of this process. As Mr. Coteau mentioned, the Youth Challenge Fund was a really strong example of a Black-led funding body actually allocating resources, which really led to a funding approach that was collaborative, that was focused on, at the time, young people, and that was focused on systemic change.
I actually was lucky to be one of the staff. I was a young intern at the Youth Challenge Fund some 15 years ago, so I feel really honoured to have started my career at that organization, to have seen how it best functions, and now to be realizing this important project for our country. But, yes—