Mr. Chair, three things related to your question come to mind from our perspective. First, as Alain said, we've written the criteria for the program in layman's language. It has to be easy to understand as a starting point.
Second, we are engaged with all our stakeholders right from the get-go. All the staff of FedNor are in northern Ontario in the field and we know our stakeholders intimately. We provide as much advice as we can informally before they even begin the application process.
Third, we've learned from the private sector in particular that time is money. The application processes were taking too long, so we've developed a two-stage application process. Within two pages, six questions, we can tell you whether we think you're eligible or not before we ask you to do any heavy lifting, like starting to develop a business plan and spending money.
That two-stage process is proving very successful, and we're hearing very positively from the client group that it is saving both time and money from their perspectives.