Finance committee  There are terms and conditions attached to the funding as part of the bill. The funding could be spent based on the terms and conditions that the Minister deems appropriate. The minister has to communicate with provinces and territories, and the provincial and territorial governments must match the federal contribution.

Finance committee  The funding is transferred to the provinces and territories, then each province and territory determines how the funding will flow to various school boards, and down to each individual school.

Finance committee  I can respond to that question. The original safe return to class fund was a $2-billion fund that was distributed in the last fiscal year to provinces and territories to assist with a safe return to class for students, including ventilation and other measures to improve the health and safety of students and staff at schools.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, I can speak to that. In part 4 of Bill C-8 there is a $100 million top-up to the safe return to class fund that will provide the provinces and territories funding to help them offset the costs of improving ventilation in schools.

Finance committee  With respect to part 4, the amounts for each province and territory are specified in the bill. This was based on [Technical difficulty—Editor] the number of children aged 4 to 18 with a $500,000 base amount for each jurisdiction.

Finance committee  I don't have anything to add. Thank you.

Finance committee  The dossier does not have anything regarding the Canada health transfer in the bill—

Finance committee  That's a question for the government.

Finance committee  I would say that the question of whether to provide further funding through the Canada health transfer would be a political decision for the government to make. I would note that, in remarks previously made by the Prime Minister, he is prepared to have a discussion with premiers to that effect once the pandemic is over—or words to that effect.

Finance committee  Once the money has flowed to the provinces and their provincial treasury, they are responsible for the spending. We do not have a direct line of sight. We have what their intentions were as they submitted, but we don't have a follow-up mechanism afterwards.

Finance committee  Reporting requirements are fairly light on the first cycle of the safe restart. On the safe return to class fund, there was generally high-level reporting from the provinces on what they spent in the first tranche and their plans for spending the second tranche. As a general rule, there is very little line of sight as to how they spent the money and when they spent it.

Finance committee  On the question of transfers to the provinces, yes, for a number of programs, you're quite right, there were funds given directly to the provinces and territories to support them in the fight against COVID -19. Perhaps the principal one among them, as you mentioned, was the safe restart agreement.

Finance committee  No. The total aggregate amount of equalization is set by formula. The total aggregate amount for all recipient provinces grows by the growth in gross domestic product, so that amount does not change.

Finance committee  With this legislation, it will be a statutory provision, so it would automatically be a statutory cost. The economic and fiscal statements will be updated, and if there is a reimbursement, it will happen in that year. It would be under statute, so this would be a statutory authority to make the payment.

Finance committee  That is because, under the simulations that we ran, we found that only those two provinces would be negatively impacted. Nunavut, actually, would be positively impacted by the changes we're proposing.