Thank you, sir, for this opportunity.
I can speak from experience in the past. Of course, the program itself depends upon our federal and provincial funding partners, 52% from our federal partners and 48% from our provincial partners.
The problem with this type of funding is that if we don't have that 52% or 48%, we just don't get it. Again, provincially, we're facing some challenges in the province of Alberta. I don't know if their 48% would be available to us.
The other challenge I've seen in the past is that it pits our first nations police services against each other. We're vying for all the dollars that are available, and I think we're all in dire need of that money. Again, it's about the best business case. Really, it's not the way I would like to see it. I would like to see evaluations that are more objective and that provide us all accessibility to the funds that are needed.
Again, it is welcome, and we are guardedly optimistic that it will make a difference. Ultimately, however, just to give you some perspective, our service received an additional resource two years ago, and prior to that, it was 12 years before we had any funding for an additional resource. That's far too long, and I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that, for that period of time, we needed growth. Our communities are the fastest-growing communities in Canada, and we have the largest youth population, which needs preventative programming, prevention and engagement. It's hard to do it when all you're doing is responding to calls.