Under the Publications and Newspaper Support Program, the money used to be transferred every week from Canadian Heritage to Canada Post. The purpose was to reduce postage for newspaper delivery. Now, the money will be given directly by Canadian Heritage to the newspaper at the beginning of the year, which is all right. We tried to really focus on this issue in our dealings with the department and that is one of the reasons why we wrote you.
I am not saying that this is going to happen, but the government is sometimes late in issuing cheques. If the cheque is late by one, two or three months, it will have an impact on the newspaper's cashflow, which is very important. If we take the case of the newspaper Le Voyageur for instance, we are talking about $12,000 or $15,000 per month. Sometimes we have to pay bills totalling $12,000 or $15,000 per month. Not all of the companies are financially solid and have enough cashflow to make ends meet. That is our concern and we are not the only ones who are worried.
The program in principle is good, but if the funds allocated by the government arrive late, starting April 1, many newspapers will have cashflow problems.