Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a problem with that concept and the way it is allocated, based on need versus population, cost of living and what not. Community recreation organizational funding should be based on ensuring recreation, sporting events and activities, to be able to offer a similar recreation package in any community. It does not matter what size it is. Right now, the way it works in our communities, you are lucky if you have a recreation officer. You may have different recreation facilities, but if you do not have people in place, which basically you need for delivering the program, the cost of administering the program is going to be the same regardless of where it is.

By using the scenario of population, one of the problems we have in a lot of our communities is that in order to attract good recreation officers to run your programs and services, in most cases, it is going to cost you more because of the cost of delivering these programs and services in the communities. Also, moving from the communities to the regional centres for different events, a lot of times our communities are forced to have bingos and raise funds through that process.

The cost of maintaining facilities in a lot of the smaller communities is probably higher than it is to maintain facilities in larger municipalities, where you are able to offset that cost by carrying it over from another pot of money or else being able to administer more buildings and facilities in that community.

I would like to ask the Minister, how long has this allocation or portion of distribution system has been in place? Are there any plans to change it?