When I read the Auditor General's report, that was a source of concern to me. I discussed it with the senior RCMP leadership in the department right away. One of the challenges is that this program is a cost-shared program. Our contribution comes at the end of the process, once provinces or territories allocate their own money.
In some cases, as I referred to in my opening comments, it has to do with the RCMP's ability to staff a particular position in a particular community. If that particular position is not able to be staffed, that's a separate challenge that we're making considerable progress in addressing. I hope somebody asks us about recruitment and retention for some of these positions in indigenous communities, because there's a good story to tell there.
But you can see the challenge. The department is not able to allocate money to a particular position that is not filled, and nor under a contribution agreement are we able to allocate money if a partner hasn't matched the 48%. There should be zero money lapsed. The way to get to zero money lapsed—we should increase the funding, which we're prepared to do—is to work with provincial and territorial partners and the RCMP to improve the way they recruit and retain, which is well under way.
I'm confident that the number should be diminishing rapidly, but we do need to work with our policing partners in different jurisdictions to get that number to zero. I don't want to pretend that we alone have the ability to drive that number to zero, but we will work with them to get it to zero as quickly as we can.