Thanks, Stephanie.
Through successive budgets, the program's overall envelope was increased over time. We had projects and calls that were launched ranging from that initial period in 2017-18 until the most recent call on digital projects. Early projects that were funded in 2017-18 and some of the Arctic and northern call projects did see some delays resulting from supply chain issues or pandemic labour market issues, and that resulted in a bit of a slowdown in spending.
We've now seen an acceleration in the rate of spending for projects. We have been working with recipients very carefully to look at the project schedules to understand the rate of spend and the rate of execution for those projects.
Stephanie did note there are about 45 projects completed to date. In the scope of the audit, for example, there were 30 projects completed by the time the scope ended in August, so we can even see an acceleration in the rate of completion of projects.
We think we're getting things back on track, for sure, and that rate of spending will increase.