Questions and responses 45th Parliament, 1st session May 26, 2025, to present

With regard to the Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme: (a) what is the total amount of travel expenses, broken down by government department, agency or entity, or external service firm, broken down by year from 2017 to date; and (b) what are the details of all accommodation expenses paid by the government, including, for each, the (i) hotel name, (ii) room rate, (iii) number of rooms booked at each rate, (iv) dates and number of nights for which each room was booked, (v) total amount of accommodation expenses paid at each establishment, (vi) cost of the airline ticket, if applicable, specifying the class of ticket, (vii) cities or places visited during the trip?

With regard to the Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme: (a) what is the total estimated cost of the project based on the most recent available data for the Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement, Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan components; (b) what additional amounts are planned to be invested in it; (c) how many hours of training on average have Employment and Social Development Canada employees received to learn how to use the software; (d) in how many cases was the system unable to issue a payment to the client on the requested date; (e) what are the average delays caused by the software, based on the most recent available data; (f) what is the estimated amount paid to each of these firms, broken down by firm, (i) Accenture, (ii) CGI, (iii) Deloitte, (iv) IBM, (v) Fujitsu; and (g) what are all the issues listed in the Issue Log for this modernization?

With regard to the Old Age Security Pension, based on the most recent data available and broken down by province, for those who choose to defer their pension: (a) what has been the longest, shortest and average waiting time to receive a first pension cheque since 2015, broken down by calendar year; (b) how many are still waiting for their first cheque after applying; (c) what is the wait time for those who submit a paper application and for those who automatically became eligible; (d) how many are still waiting for their first cheque after becoming eligible; (e) how many recipients received a payment before the requested date, broken down by calendar year; and (f) what proportion of Service Canada’s call volume concerns problems with processing and paying pensions?

With regard to the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding and specifically the methane equivalence agreement which targets a 75% reduction from 2014 emission levels by 2035 for Alberta: (a) what is the impact of this decision on the modeling of greenhouse gas emissions projections for each projection scenario and for all milestone years from 2026 to 2050; (b) what are the economic impacts (including public investment costs); (c) what are the impacts on the costs of gas production, transportation, and distribution in Alberta; (d) what are the impacts on the economic competitiveness of other gas-producing provinces (loss of sales, impact on production, etc.); (e) what are the environmental impacts (green house gases, biodiversity, water, etc.), also specifying the environmental impacts if other provinces delay the implementation of methane regulations from 2030 to 2035 as Alberta will do; (f) what are the impacts on health (economic costs, health problems, morbidity, premature deaths, etc.); (g) what other impacts are there; and (h) for all documentation relating to this same decision, including scientific opinions, briefing notes, studies and briefs used by or provided to the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the Department of Finance, the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister's Office, what are the details, including the (i) date, (ii) sender, (iii) type of document, (iv) title of the document, (v) summary of the content of the message?

With regard to the Pathways carbon capture, utilization and storage project, and the November 27, 2025 Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and Alberta, in which the government committed to creating the conditions necessary for the development of infrastructure, including pipelines, that will increase the production and transportation of natural resources in Western Canada: (a) what is the estimated total cost of implementing the Pathways project and what is the breakdown of its costs by (i) the estimated cost to be borne by the private sector, federal and provincial, presented separately, (ii) the estimated cost to be borne by the public sector; (b) what portion of the estimated cost in (a) is to be borne by the federal government, including any federal partner agency, and including any tax measures to support such a project, such as the CCUS investment tax credit; (c) for each year from 2030 to 2050, how much of a greenhouse gas emissions reduction is this project expected to generate per year (for each of the years); and (d) for any documentation regarding this commitment and this targeted project, including scientific advice, briefing notes, studies and briefs used by or provided to the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the Department of Finance Canada, the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's Office, what are the details, including (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message?

With regard to the 15% cut to Environment and Climate Change Canada's departmental expenditures, for the reduction or elimination of program activities that are not part of its core mandate, as announced in the 2025 budget and broken down by province: (a) which program activities will be reduced; (b) which program activities will be eliminated; (c) for all documentation used to determine which program activities are not part of Environment and Climate Change Canada's core mandate, as well as the evaluation criteria used to define what is and is not a core mandate activity, what are the details, including, (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message; (d) what portion of the 15% cuts will be through job losses and what amount does this correspond to; (e) what portion of the 15% cuts will be through attrition; (f) what will be the reduction in the number of employees at Environment and Climate Change Canada; (g) what portion of the 15% cuts will be achieved through program simplification, and what amount does this correspond to; (h) which programs will be discontinued; (i) which programs will be simplified, and how will they be simplified; (j) for any internal documentation describing the complexity of nature-based programs, what are the details, including (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message; (k) what are the nature-based programs; (l) according to budget 2025, the department will “improve day-to-day operating efficiency by eliminating redundancies,” what are the redundancies in question, and for any documentation informing about the nature of these redundancies and how they were identified, what are the details, including (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message; (m) what portion of the 15% cuts will be achieved by eliminating redundancies and what amount does this correspond to; (n) what will save the Canada Water Agency $0.7 to $1.2 million per year as prescribed in the budget and what will be the impact on water protection; (o) what will enable the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to save $7.9 to $15.8 million per year, and for any documentation informing the potential impact of these savings on the Agency's assessment timelines and on the quality of the Agency's environmental impact assessments, what are the details, including (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message; and (p) what will be the impacts on achieving the greenhouse gas targets and on achieving the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Agreement of saving Environment and Climate Change Canada $236.8 million to $302.9 million per year?