Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm happy to give a short introduction. The Canada Development Investment Corporation consists of a small group of people who are responsible to the Minister of Finance for looking after assets that the government gets and probably wants to resell. There are examples in the backgrounder.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. We have two partly related subsidiaries in the energy business. In one case, the government owns an 8.5% interest in the Hibernia oil field offshore in Newfoundland. It is still producing, and obviously prices are lower, so the revenue is lower, but it is still producing at full steam.

Finance committee  The cost estimate that was produced last January was for $12.6 billion. So far, we don't see any likelihood of an increase in that cost. At present, things are going according to plan, and the pipeline should be completed by the end of 2022. Every indication we have is that the $12.6 billion number is still a very sound number.

Finance committee  Our intention is that as soon as loans are made, we will announce those. I think there is a requirement that the minister puts them to Parliament first—I'm not sure about that—in which case they will go that way. If that is not the case, we will publish them on our website, much the same as EDC does now with its loan portfolio.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll answer them in reverse order. There is no intention that any loans will be forgiven. Our mandate from the minister is that once we make a loan, we become purely commercial, the same as a bank. As for the second one, with respect to executive compensation, there are limits put on executive compensation as a part of the loan program, and those will be strictly enforced.

Finance committee  I think the minister was actually referring to another program. In terms of our program, we've been open for business for less than three weeks now. We have received a few dozen inquiries. It obviously takes time to get from an inquiry to an application to making a loan. We have not yet made any loans.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  It's around 10 at this point.

Finance committee  We have requirements in the term sheets that companies file the information on what the government wants companies to do in relation to how they get to neutral carbon emissions by 2050. This is a process that securities industries and the government are trying to get all companies to do.

Finance committee  We have a right to appoint an observer. I think in practice we would probably not appoint an observer in most cases. I think it's there as a backup in case we have some concern about the particular company. Back in 2009-10, the American government had a program for the U.S. banks called TARP .

Finance committee  We haven't worked those out yet. Most loans would not be problematic. If there was a problematic loan, we would want to look at what was causing those problems and we might want to take some steps, such as appointing an observer.

Finance committee  It is not something you can put an absolute hard number on. ISED is doing sector reviews as part of this process, and I suspect ISED will have things to say in that area. It's outside of our area.

Finance committee  We've done several things. We hired a president who joined us just before the end of May. We have put together a board of directors, which includes several experienced financial people headed by Sandra Rosch, who is an experienced financial executive. In terms of employees, we are providing Canada Development Investment Corporation employees, on a part-time basis, temporarily.