First of all, most applications are submitted to the regions, in the case of the provinces and territories. The Department of Canadian Heritage staff who are there are familiar with the organizations in place and work with them.
There are indeed some organizations that present a greater risk. Most of these organizations have a significant history. Some improvements have been made when it comes to multi-year applications. When applications are approved, the funding is assured. This year, these applications became due, and further applications had to be submitted which had to be examined once again, thus leading to delays. We understand that these multi-year applications are only granted to organizations who have a good track record and are stable. We will ask for a streamlined process for those types of organizations.
There is a lot of red tape involved in submitting an application and having it evaluated. In fact, the application is often submitted to the Department of Canadian Heritage which then sends it to a management committee. That committee makes a recommendation to the Department of Canadian Heritage which approves it before sending it to Ottawa, where everything is sent to the minister's office. That kind of operating structure should be reviewed, including all the red tape involved in these binders — we are serious when we say binders for funding applications. The staff in the regions should be allowed to approve everything rather than sending it all here.
When a minister's office has to approve hundreds if not thousands of binders, the whole process becomes unduly lengthy.