Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think the main message I want to—

Public Accounts committee  The government, at the end of the day, decides how much to allocate to these priorities. It's the industry department's job to then determine how best to allocate the funding we've been given in our budget to individual projects to make sure that we're getting the best value for money.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I'm happy to take a stab at it. First of all, in all seriousness, I married a girl from Miramichi and spent a whole lot of time in Newcastle, so I have to be very measured in my answer here or I'm going to get into a lot of trouble. I would say to the committee that I think a large measure of the response is the industry department's job.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I want to be as helpful as I can, but I think that question is probably best directed to the provincial government. I will say that we have been very open about a willingness to partner up with provinces if they wish to co-invest. Some have not done that and others have, but our commitment remains the same.

Public Accounts committee  It's hard for me to provide specifics, but thank you for the question.

Public Accounts committee  We're confident that the money we have now will enable us to achieve our goal of connecting 98% of households. What remains to be determined is the amount for the remaining 2% of coverage. We agree with the Auditor General when she says we need to determine how much will be needed to close the gap, but I don't have that figure at this time.

Public Accounts committee  I believe that's the case. There's still a little more work to be done to move forward with what's currently on the table and identify all the elements. For instance, it's possible that our current investments will allow us to go further. If so, it will cost less.

Public Accounts committee  Ultimately, it will be up to the government to announce those details. That said, I honestly think it's realistic to think that in 2024 we'll have a good sense of the results borne by efforts underway.

Public Accounts committee  We have signed agreements with British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland to date.

Public Accounts committee  I don't know whether I have that information directly available or not. We'd be happy to come to the committee with a detailed accounting. I will say that we work very closely with the CIB on major projects, and we often co-invest together to stretch our dollars. We have worked very closely with the Infrastructure Bank.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  I would have to come back with the specifics. As I said before, we're actually confident that we're going to hit our targets, and we've already hit the first milestone in 2021. In aggregate, the delays have not resulted in a material setback to hitting the targets. There have been individual projects that certainly have been delayed.

Public Accounts committee  I would make two comments. One would be that there was a previous program of, I would say, more modest scale that focused on backbone technology. This wasn't like last-mile technology where you're connecting the house. It was basically designed to build the major pipes that reach the community but don't actually connect up to the individual house or the individual streets.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I'd be happy to speak to that, and I can turn to my colleague Mr. Dagenais to talk a bit more about the specific process. It's just to say that we opened a portal for applications to both the UBF and the rapid response stream. With the rapid response stream, we had about 10 times more applications for shovel-ready projects than were anticipated.

Public Accounts committee  Telesat is still working on the launch of their LEO constellation.