Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), the amount of the total 2017 budget for the Canadian Administrator of VRS, or CAV, is $25,419,405.
With regard to (b), the amount of CAV’s 2016 deficit is $666,693. With regard to (c), while there is no line item in the budget specifically called “administrative expenses”, the CAV projected $375,419 for administration for 2017.
With regard to (d), by “the amount of the 2017 CAV budget to provide 76 hours per week in both English/ASL and French/LSQ services”, it is assumed that the question refers to the CAV’s operations expenses and operations-contingency, which are as follows: for operations, 19,703,898; for operations-contingency, $3,487,416.
With regard to (e), the CAV’s forecast of VRS users for 2017 is an average of 3000 users, and the average number of minutes per month is 100 minutes per user.
With regard to (f), (g), and (h), in processing parliamentary returns, the government applies the Privacy Act and the principles set out in the Access to Information Act, and the information requested has been withheld on the grounds that the information constitutes third party information related to material loss and contract negotiations.
With regard to (i), while the CAV’s application to the CRTC notes that there are incentives within the contract they concluded with Convo Communications to incite them to establish Canadian-based operations, no further details were provided and the CRTC has no additional insight.