The OLEP has been around for a long time, but the funds have been frozen for several years. Last spring, the government announced $121.3 million for minority institutions. This amount is part of the OLEP. So this is another envelope, which is specifically for post-secondary institutions in the OLEP.
This fund is going to be rolled out over three years, this year and the next two. The plan is to double these funds thereafter. In fact, the $121.3 million over three years is about $40 million a year, which would be doubled to about $80 million a year. So that's the background related to the fund.
When we talked about one-time projects, we were referring to the mechanism in the applicant's guide for this $121.3 million fund. So far, the mechanism allows for ad hoc annual projects, which is clearly not aligned with the purpose for which we put this fund in place. The purpose was to solidify the network and support institutions to increase their operating capacity.
What we are saying is that the mechanism used for this new $121.3-million envelope is the same mechanism that has been used for the OLEP for several years and has been problematic all this time. There are problems with this mechanism and this is not new. We have been flagging it for a long time, since it does not allow for sustained funding that can bring about structuring changes to our institutions and allow for core funding.