The CFI—which was one of the instruments by which the federal government had put in place the capital funding—recognized fairly early in the program that there was in fact a shortfall in operating support. The legislation for CFI was amended to allow the CFI to use some of its own funding to provide interim operational support. And that has now become a standard part of every CFI project.
However, it is a formulaic model, and it's a small fraction of the total amount of funding that's actually required, and there is no long-term, ongoing commitment. And that's what you're seeing happen with regard to NEPTUNE and the SNOLAB, in that such funding is simply no longer available.
So it's not that there wasn't a recognition early on, but that the government didn't act to put in place a program that would provide the ongoing operational support, or identify the agency that would actually take responsibility for that. And that's the situation we're facing today.