Public Accounts committee  There have been some projects that have experienced delays. I'll have to come back with maybe a more precise answer. Again, maybe just to emphasize what I'd said before. At least to date, it is not our judgment that those kinds of delays are going to result in the targets that have been laid out by the government not being hit.

Public Accounts committee  A lot of these projects are major infrastructure projects. They have to go through a measure of due diligence before we would recommend the government put significant tax dollars into them. However, there are various mechanisms built into the way in which the program operates that are designed to try to move things along.

Public Accounts committee  It comes from the department. Once the government has looked at your project and says that it looks like it's pretty good, you have to negotiate a detailed contract, a legally binding contract. Once you get the provisional approval, you have enough confidence to get going and spend up to 30% of the cost of the project, knowing that, when the final contract is signed, we will honour that.

Public Accounts committee  I'll turn to Mr. Dagenais who's been involved directly in the conversations.

Public Accounts committee  We'd be happy to come back. I think we can provide it by province. I'll have to look at counties, but we definitely have more granular statistics. We'd be very happy to come back and try to provide as much as we can.

Public Accounts committee  I'll have to come back. I apologize. I am a little less familiar with the intricacies of that program, but I'm happy to come back and provide an answer. It was a different sort of program. To the honourable member's question, it was providing funding for backbone Internet, like the large pipes.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. We have agreed with the Auditor General's recommendation to take that into greater account. We are working on that now. What I will say is that it has not historically been the case—not just for Canada but also for advanced, industrial economies in the OECD that make these kinds of broadband investments—to have income in the local community be the primary criterion.

Public Accounts committee  What I would say to that is that we agree income is an important consideration. It's just that, in the way in which we roll out a major project in a given rural area, a criterion for figuring out the price wouldn't be to say, “Well, the income in that catchment area is x and, therefore, we want the price to be lower.”

Public Accounts committee  I'd have to go back and get the latest plans from Telesat, but the project has been delayed for a number of reasons. The company has been advancing the project, but it is not scheduled to be in service by 2024. The date has been pushed back. We would not anticipate having any households connected by the Telesat constellation at that date.

Public Accounts committee  I think the government has been clear that it has been prepared to make an investment in the Telesat constellation if and when that project proceeds. There have been changes over the last couple of years. The committee may wish to talk to Telesat to get the latest details, but we're very hopeful that Telesat, a proud Canadian company that's been a leader in the telecommunications satellite business, will be successful with their LEO project.

Public Accounts committee  I think that may be a question best directed to Telesat. What I would say is that there are a number of these LEO constellations that are being planned or have already been launched. It's a business decision from Telesat, but in our discussions with them, they believe there are market segments—

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I would confirm that affordability is the top concern for us in all of our work on telecom, including the universal broadband fund. I'd be happy to elaborate in more detail. When project proponents come forward, we are very interested to know what prices they are going to charge, whether those prices are appropriate and whether they're comparable to prices you might find in the market.

Public Accounts committee  The extensions were primarily required because of the huge volume of applications we received. It was an order of magnitude more than originally anticipated. The thinking had been that the number of shovel-ready projects that would be available to move ahead immediately were fewer than what we actually received in the end.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, it is. It's $50 million.

Public Accounts committee  I'll turn to my colleague Mr. Dagenais.