Industry Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[The Clerk]

It should be good now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Please proceed, Mr. Cumming.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll switch gears to the co-lending program with BCAP. Would any of the officials on the call today be able to talk about it? The minister started to speak to it but wasn't able to speak to how accessible that loan program has been. What's the uptake on it? How many loans have been applied for? What's the length of approvals?

Is there anything that you can provide to the committee today?

[Simon Kennedy]

Madam Chair, I would suggest turning to my colleague Paul Thompson, who is the associate deputy minister. He's been working very closely with colleagues at the bank on this and other issues.

Paul may have something that he could say about this.

[Paul Thompson, Associate Deputy Minister, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Department of Industry]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would note that the BCAP is part of a suite of liquidity supports that are available to businesses. It has been a little slower in the take-up in comparison with some of the other programs. The CEBA program, for example, has about $31 billion out the door, and the recent expansion is critical, particularly in light of the issue of loan deferrals that the member noted.

On the BCAP, there are two components. There's an EDC loan guarantee and a BDC co-lending product. The EDC loan guarantee is currently at about $1 billion in authorized loans, and the BDC co-lend is at around $750 million. A lot of that has been progress in the last few months, as companies take on these debt instruments instead of just the other liquidity supports that have been available.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Are we seeing any kind of improvement in that application process? I know that we dealt with this issue before, during the summer. The concerns we heard from businesses were that the length of time to be able to get these loans approved has been way too long. Are we starting to see...? Are we tracking the trend on that? Are application processes going through more quickly now?

[Paul Thompson]

There's been a lot of attention to service delivery, both with the CEBA product and its various iterations, as there has been with the BCAP. Those service standards, as well as the overall lending authorizations, are tracked pretty rigorously.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay. I'll go back to my question.

Is the department doing some analysis on all these deferrals, increased debt, all of which I think will create some liquidity issues for a lot of businesses? Are we tracking? Are we studying...? Is there any work towards looking at any programs that will deal with that fiscal cliff for a lot of these businesses when those monies become due?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, Mr. Cumming, you're over your time.

I'll now turn to MP Jaczek for the last slot.

You have five minutes.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have a couple of questions for Deputy Kennedy in relation to the universal broadband fund.

In my community, as I referenced when I questioned Minister Monsef, there's certainly excitement about the universal broadband fund, because so many have been waiting for it. However, I would like to understand clearly who does what.

My riding, Markham—Stouffville, is in the province of Ontario, in the Regional Municipality of York. The region of York has an organization called YorkNet. As I understand it, they are the first point that constituents, residents, approach in terms of a proposal for the need for broadband. There's also been an announcement by the Province of Ontario of some $1 billion for a broadband fund.

What I'm interested in, in a very concrete way, is how it actually works between what the region is trying to do and what the federal government is trying to do. How, in fact, do proponents of proposals to get hooked up find their way through what is extremely complicated?

[Simon Kennedy]

It's a very good question. This is a key part of the work we do on the rollout of broadband. As I noted earlier, we have strong relationships with every one of the provincial governments.

I'll just give an example to the honourable member. Éric, who's my colleague here on the panel today, and I were on a video conference with our colleagues in Ontario just this week to discuss this very issue and to talk about how we work together.

The point I'd make would be that it really depends on where you are in the country and the nature of the project, but moving these projects forward is often a question of a strong collaboration with the federal government, the provincial government, often a municipality or a first nation, and in the case of some of these bigger projects, potentially the Infrastructure Bank and the ISPs themselves. Obviously, we try to be as creative and as efficient as possible to get to an outcome that connects the most people at the lowest price in a way that is sustainable.

In a given community, it might be that the province agrees to put some money in and that helps stretch the federal dollars further. Maybe in some communities the project is actually closer to being economic. That might be where the Infrastructure Bank comes in, because they can help to finance projects that make business sense. Maybe there's a modest subsidy that we could put in, and then it makes business sense for the Infrastructure Bank to step in.

It's hard to say this is exactly how it works in each case, but the point is that when we take these applications in, there is often a combination of work with the province, the municipality, the ISP and other parties. We are very open-minded about looking at different kinds of arrangements to make projects work, and there's a lot of elbow grease to sit down at the table and get these parties together. It really does depend on a partnership of working together.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you for that.

Given the complexity, how confident are you that we're going to meet the goal of 98% connectivity across the country within what is, it seems to me, a pretty short timeline? Could you just reassure us as to the doability of this project?

[Simon Kennedy]

Madam Chair, we are confident that it's a doable outcome. We have done the quite detailed mapping that my colleague Mr. Dagenais talked about earlier, so we actually know what the gap is and where the gap is.

My organization has played a regulatory role in this sector. We deal with the ISPs and the telecom companies every day; we work with them and know their capabilities. The 98% is a confident projection based on our understanding—a fairly technical and detailed understanding—of the gaps, the capabilities of the ISPs and what's realistic and affordable, and the amount of money needed to close the gap. Therefore, we're pretty confident about that.

In terms of the speed, we've worked to make sure, to the extent possible, there's a common intake process. The Infrastructure Bank's form is basically our form. Ontario's form looks like our form. We actually work quite closely with other levels of government to have this be a harmonized and smooth process. We have a federal coordinating table, so all the federal players are getting around the table regularly. We have this pathfinder service to actually hold the hand of groups that want to make an application, because for smaller organizations it is complicated. Doing a big infrastructure project is complicated and we want to make sure that we're there at every step of the way to help these organizations through it.

We're quite confident. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much. That ends our time for today.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their time and their testimony.

With that, I call this meeting adjourned.