That was before my time, but my understanding, as I said earlier, is that it was for the three mills to have a larger volume and to try to have the same equipment in order to reduce costs, so that if somebody had a part, we could trade around. Then one company sold out, but we continue to work with Great Northern Bio Energy and with Whitesand, because Whitesand is another first nation community. We'll have two-thirds of what we originally went into.
The funding has helped us—yes, you're right—to hire somebody and have the operation working, to develop our business plan, to move it to the next stage with respect to the class 20 and the class 10. It's just getting to that point. I didn't come here to shoot down the programs. When we talked, we asked what some of the things are that we could come here to talk to the panel about. It's basically just that continuity. It's trying to get a program that goes.
The other subject that I don't want to lose here concerns the loan guarantee. Many first nations don't have big pockets, and when you build a pellet plant, it's going to cost $20 million. There's a huge capital investment there.
If you go to the banks...as Mayor Dennis mentioned earlier, when a company was there, they didn't want to give money for a pellet plant. Look at first nations. This is a company that has established funds, and they don't have it.
A loan guarantee would go a long way in regard to supporting the work of FedNor and in regard to all the other funding we get. It will go there to support it, to ensure that the project goes from the beginning to the end.