Thank you very much for raising that point.
Overall, there has been a declining availability of resources for first nations, not just in the forest sector but for all our organizations. It makes it very challenging for us to provide the product that we want to build a relationship with other levels of government. As for WED, in particular, we started a number of years ago with a value-added program with FPInnovations. We launched that. We absolutely need groups like that to be our partners to deliver it in a professional manner; we're very small and new in the space. The benefit is for us to lead it to make sure that our aboriginal values are part of the program and the delivery.
When times got tough and money was being reduced FPInnovations ended up having a better chance going on their own. They've continued since with first nations forestry funding from the federal family, provincially, and with their industry partners. That almost put us out of business. We had one year where we had zero funding. We're operating where I'm doing well if I get $500,000 for our organization a year. That doesn't go very far for 203 first nations and the participation and opportunity in forestry that we have.
When we have to compete in national-level funding mechanisms, we don't win those races very well. We don't have LNG in our name so it makes it very tough to get funding. We really look forward to some sort of support at a provincially sized, recognizable, and appropriate scale, so we can participate and activate our ideas in support of the sector.