I would remind you, Ms. Davies, that in fact next year, after these funding changes have been made, we'll be investing $600 million in settlement services nationally, in contrast to the previous government's funding of $200 million five years ago. That's a 300% increase. Even in Ontario, the funding level was $111 million in 2005; next year it will be $346.5 million. That's an increase of 319% over five years. That is not a cut; it's actually a huge increase.
In some parts of Ontario, such as York Region, there will be an increase in settlement funding in that region of 43%. In seven of ten provinces there will be increases. Many new organizations are coming on-stream that never received funding before, but will now. So the depiction of this as some kind of, as you said, hacking and slashing is quite frankly inaccurate.
In terms of the department's timing, they've been working on this for well over a year. In fact, they launched requests for proposals based on the new funding formula allocations last May—or was it earlier in the year?—and received, I think, 750 submissions from Ontario alone. The officials looked at those submissions, made a qualitative assessment, and then contacted the settlement organizations in the fall, in October and November. Most organizations knew by November whether or not they were going to have a contribution agreement.