First of all, thank you for the congratulations on the extension.
As I've said in the House, we couldn't make a decision on that until we got the data from the provinces. We had anecdotal stories, but we needed data from the provinces, which are in charge of actually making the projects happen. We supply the money; they do the project management, if you will.
It really wasn't until about three weeks ago that we got all the data in on the specific projects across the country. Once we got all of that, it became quickly apparent, as we went through the data, that there were a number of projects, about 90% of them, probably give or take 90%, that would get completed. There was a significant portion, maybe 10%, that would have trouble or would incur ridiculous costs--paving in the wintertime, for example.
Obviously, we've been sending the signal for quite some time. As you know, in the House, in response to your questions and others, we wanted to be fair and reasonable. I've been meeting with provincial ministers. While the proposal for a six-month extension was fair, to be fair and reasonable it had to be seven months. Of course, that would make it both fair and reasonable.
In the end, we're confident that 90% of these projects are going to get done. It is important that people understand that there are conditions that go with this. Again, there are no blank cheques here. There are certain obligations that proponents have to show us. They have to show us that the project is under way. In other words, it's not just on the back burner; it has to have started. The proponents have to have incurred expenses to date. They have to give us, again, the status report as to.... We don't want to get into this again. They're the ones who promised us that they could do the job, after all. It's only fair to promise us that they can do it, with an engineer's assessment, and that it can be done in this extension period.
We are not taking further applications. This is not a new program or an extension to start new ideas or to come up with new ideas. These are for existing projects that are already in the system.