Good morning. I'll discuss some of our special measures for 2010-11.
We had an ongoing process of consultation when we designed the program--we had round tables, we had submissions from groups like QCNA and l'APF--and ongoing discussions since the program launch was announced. It became clear that the number one concern was the gap between the end of the PAP, which was yesterday, and the provision of new funding.
To try to make that gap as short as possible, we decided to launch eight publishers early. Bear in mind that our existing programs were running until yesterday. We created the new program. We launched it on January 19 and gave only a month for people to apply, but we had been advising the various associations for months before that there would be a short application deadline. We received 1,000 applications by February 19 of this year. Normally with a government program, 1,000 applications might take you nine months to process. It's an enormous volume of work. To make that manageable, we decided to use the benefit of the fact that many of our criteria were similar to our existing programs. We had already pre-examined most of these titles under our existing program, so that anyone who was already receiving funding essentially had to fill out an extremely simplified application form, a two-page attestation form.
That meant the number of applications we had to do detailed work on fell from 1,000 to roughly 200. We're working on those right now. Our intention is to run the funding formula in April. That doesn't mean the cheques go out then. That means we'll know how much everyone will receive. There have to be approvals. We have to generate the grants letters. They have to go out. But we've managed to reduce the time immensely.
At least six months ago we had warned all the associations to let their members know that there would be a gap in funding, but that when the funding arrived it would be upfront funding for the year. Under the PAP you got a little bit of funding every time you used a mailing, so you would perhaps get $1,000 or $2,000 a month. With this, you will receive your entire year's funding up front and be able to apply it strategically.
We also let people know for this year only—because we knew people had to adjust to a new program, and they had to have the ability to do financial planning—that the amounts they would receive would be between 90% and 150% of what they had received from our two programs combined in previous years. If you were an existing recipient, you could look at what you'd received previously, and you had at least that surety.
In fact, for smaller titles, it will be more than the 100%. It will be between 100% and 150%. The only exception to this 90% to 150% rule is, as Monsieur Bernier mentioned, that we put a cap of $1.5 million on it. That means some of the large titles are losing close to 50% of their funding for this year, which was a strategic decision the government made, and that funding is being reapportioned among smaller titles, including official language minority titles.