Q-1351 , 45th Parliament, 1st session May 26, 2025, to present

With regard to Budget 2025’s expansion of federal support for digital and artificial intelligence infrastructure, including the broadened mandate and increased capitalization of the Canada Infrastructure Bank for artificial intelligence and related digital investments: (a) what analysis has been conducted by the government regarding this policy shift, including (i) the rationale for redefining “infrastructure” in Budget 2025 to include artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital systems within the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s mandate, (ii) the justification for advancing this shift through budgetary and administrative measures rather than explicit legislative amendment and parliamentary debate, (iii) the basis on which artificial intelligence systems, cloud platforms, and digital assets are being treated as “infrastructure” for federal financing purposes, (iv) the expected long-term fiscal exposure, contingent liabilities, and risk transfer to taxpayers arising from this expansion; (b) what governance, oversight, and accountability frameworks currently apply to artificial intelligence-related investments made or facilitated through the Canada Infrastructure Bank and associated federal digital governance bodies, and, if no dedicated framework exists, why such investments are proceeding without a tailored governance regime comparable to other high-risk or system-critical domains; (c) what measures are in place to ensure transparency, parliamentary oversight, and auditability of contracts, systems, data infrastructure, and public-private partnerships funded or enabled under this expanded mandate; (d) which private sector entities, institutional investors, infrastructure funds, cloud providers, artificial intelligence firms, data centre operators, technology vendors, provincial entities, Crown corporations, foreign state-owned enterprises, or other partners have been engaged or are under consideration for participation in projects under this expanded mandate and, for each, (i) what is the entity name, (ii) what is the nature and stage of engagement, (iii) have any agreements, procurement processes, investments, or approvals been executed or are under consideration, (iv) what is the estimated value of any proposed federal support, financing, guarantees, or risk-sharing arrangements, (v) a summary of due diligence conducted or planned, including with respect to national security, competition, privacy, data sovereignty, and conflicts of interest; and (e) what measures are in place to ensure that compute capacity, training data, model access, and associated digital infrastructure financed through federal mechanisms remain subject to Canadian legal, audit, and sovereignty requirements?