Thank you very much for the question.
I certainly agree with that concern. That's been a concern of the federal government.
Maybe just as some background for all of your colleagues, when the the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund first came in, it had a $20-million minimum project threshold. Only very large structural mitigation projects were eligible. It excluded lots of smaller rural communities and even smaller projects that were still important in cities.
FCM advocated strongly to have that threshold reduced, and we were successful in having it reduced to $1 million as a total project cost, scoping in lots more projects. There are still barriers for rural municipalities, and a big part of that barrier is the complexity of the application form and the application process. Municipalities have to hire consultants just to apply for the funding.
Consistent with the conversation we've been having on allocating funding to where it's most needed and the risk—recognizing that the federal government needs information up front to be able to determine where that investment should be—we do need to look at streamlining that application process up front to reduce the barrier entry, especially for small rural communities.