Questions and responses All Sessions January 17, 1994, to present

With respect to Public Works and Government Services Canada, for every project over 5 million dollars which received money from the department in the last 5 years and which involved incurred or currently foreseen cost overruns of 15% or more relative to the initial predictions: (a) what is the name of that project and details on its nature; (b) what is the history of cost predictions for that project, including (i) dates of predictions reviews and amounts of the predictions, (ii) itemized predictions on the costs of different subparts of that project; (c) what are the reasons for the cost overruns; (d) what are the dates at which ministers or their close staff were informed of the cost predictions described in part (b), what was the name of the Minister or staffer that received the information and what is a description of the actions taken, if any, by the Minister in reaction to that information; and (e) what is, in percentage (compared with the initial prediction), and in dollars, the final incurred value or the currently expected value of the cost overrun?

With respect to the decision to purchase 65 Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs), how much money has the government spent since May 2010 on: (a) flights to events for elected officials, exempt staff, public servants or others via (i) public flights, (ii) charter flights, (iii) Department of National Defence challenger aircraft, (iv) airbuses, (v) Transport Canada aircraft; (b) setting up and holding press conferences or media availabilities related to the JSF, including the date and cost for each; (c) hospitality expenses for events dealing with the JSF; and (d) hotel and local travel costs for anyone travelling on JSF-related business?

With regards to hospitality expenses: (a) how much did each department and agency spend on alcohol in fiscal years (i) 2006-2007, (ii) 2007-2008, (iii) 2008-2009, (iv) 2009-2010; and (b) what expense amounts were authorized by (i) the Minister, (ii) a delegated exempt staffer in the Minister's office, (iii) the Deputy Minister?

With regard to the Department of Natural Resources, for fiscal years 2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009-2010 and the current fiscal year: (a) how much did the Department budget for the Port Hope Area Initiative; (b) how much did the Department actually spend on the Port Hope Area Initiative; and (c) how many additional requests were made to the Treasury Board for the Port Hope Area Initiative, for how much were these requests and were the requests granted?

With regard to Canada’s involvement in United Nations' peacekeeping missions: (a) how many Canadian peacekeepers are deployed at present and to what locations; (b) how long have the peacekeepers in (a) been deployed to these areas; and (c) how much money does Canada contribute to United Nations peacekeeping missions?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA): (a) what amount of Official Development Assistance is allocated to Haiti; (b) what specific regions in Haiti have received these funds; (c) since when have these funds been allocated to Haiti; and (d) what is the status of the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund and the matching funds from CIDA?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency and the government's Child and Maternal Health Initiative: (a) how much has the government promised to contribute to the Initiative; (b) what percentage of the funds have already been spent on or earmarked for specific projects or programs; and (c) what percentage of the funds will be allocated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency: (a) what amount of Official Development Assistance is allocated to Sudan; (b) what specific regions in Sudan have received these funds; and (c) what specific sectors or programs are receiving these funds and what are they for?

With regard to KAIROS, which has lost its funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as of November 30, 2009 due to KAIROS no longer fitting CIDA priorities: (a) what are the CIDA priorities that did not fit well with the priorities of KAIROS; (b) what sort of criteria does CIDA examine to determine whether or not a non-governmental organization will receive funding; and (c) what specific criteria did KAIROS not meet to have their funding cut by CIDA?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency's requirement under the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act to report annually to Parliament on its progress in three key areas: (a) what reporting requirements has the Agency implemented in incorporating the Act; and (b) how are these reporting requirements evaluated?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency: (a) what percentage of Official Development Assistance (ODA) is allocated to maternal and child health; (b) which branches of ODA does the funding come from; (c) what are the programs that receive this funding; and (d) how are these programs’ performance evaluated?

With regard to KAIROS, which has lost their funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as of November 30, 2009, due to KAIROS no longer fitting CIDA priorities: (a) what are the CIDA priorities that did not fit well with the priorities of KAIROS; (b) what sort of criteria does CIDA examine to determine whether or not a non-governmental organization will receive funding; and (c) what specific criteria did KAIROS not meet to have their funding cut by CIDA?

With regard to the Development Assistance Accountability Act, requiring the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to report annually to Parliament on its progress: (a) what reporting requirements has CIDA implemented in incorporating the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act; and (b) how are these reporting requirements evaluated?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency: (a) what percentage of Official Development Assistance (ODA) is allocated to maternal and child health; (b) which branches of ODA does the funding come from; (c) what are the programs that receive this funding; and (d) how are these programs’ performance evaluated?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency International Humanitarian Assistance Directorate (IHA): (a) how precisely are funding decisions made within the mandate of the IHA Directorate; (b) who has the final authority on IHA funding decisions; (c) what criteria are used by the final decision-making authority when allocating IHA funding; (d) what has been done over the last two fiscal years to improve the timeliness of IHA funding; (e) what level of funding and human resources are provided to monitoring and evaluation of IHA-funded projects; (f) how has Canada progressed on its commitments to the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) initiative; and (g) what is the status of the development of a Humanitarian Assistance Framework, as committed to in Canada’s 2006 Domestic Implementation Plan for the GHD?

With regard to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) expenditures, what are the: (a) most recent statistical updates on International Assistance; (b) detailed breakdown of expenditures by department and unit within CIDA, for the most recent three fiscal years; (c) definitions of what precisely is counted in Official Development Assistance, Humanitarian Assistance and the International Assistance Envelope; (d) cost of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) deployments to Pakistan, in October 2005 and Sri Lanka, in 2004-2005, and specifically which part of these deployments were covered by CIDA; (e) most recent five fiscal year breakdowns of funds provided to all United Nations Agencies, directly to foreign governments (bilateral) and to non-governmental organisations (excluding the Red Cross); (f) most recent numbers for all CIDA Gender-related program expenditures; and (g) most recent five fiscal year breakdowns of all CIDA overheads (administrative costs)?

With regards to the implementation of Bill C-293, An Act respecting the provision of official development assistance abroad, which received Royal Assent in May 2008 and which states that for each Official Development Assistance (ODA) disbursement, the responsible Minister must be of the opinion that this disbursement meets three simultaneous tests including, contributing to poverty reduction, taking into account the perspectives of the poor and is being consistent with international human rights standards: (a) what is the process by which this Act has been applied to current Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) programming; (b) how was this Act addressed in terms of CIDA’s rationale for removal of six African countries from its list of focus; (c) how has the application process for CIDA funding been changed to reflect the provisions of this Act; (d) how have program reporting mechanisms been changed to reflect the provisions of this Act; (e) how have the provisions of this Act been adapted as criteria for multi-lateral funding; and (f) how has the agency educated CIDA employees on the provisions of this Act?

Given that Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) commitment to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to global poverty reduction, based on the CIDA Report on Plans and Priorities 2009-2010: (a) how is CIDA contributing to the fulfillment of MDGs 4 and 5; (b) what specific CIDA programs have been instituted to address MDGs 4 and 5; and (c) how much spending has been allocated by CIDA to these specific programs and to the overall attainment of these goals?

With regards to the announcement that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will steer its foreign aid toward a smaller pool of 20 countries, down from 25 announced under the previous government in 2005: (a) what were the criteria established by the department by which countries were (i) removed from the 2005 list, (ii) added to the new list of recipients; (b) when did consultation begin to discuss removing or adding countries from focus list; (c) who took part in these discussions; (d) were any non-governmental organizations, multilateral organizations, church organizations or any other third party stakeholders consulted about the proposed changes to CIDA’s focus list and, if so, which ones specifically; (e) how specifically were the obligations of the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act taken into consideration by the Agency when establishing criteria for adding or removing countries and how were the perspectives of the poor taken into account during the decision making process; (f) when, how and by whom were countries removed from the list informed of CIDA’s decision; (g) what are the projected funds to be delivered to each specific country on the new focus list; (h) what are the specific programs to be funded in each country on the new focus list; (i) does CIDA have on-the-ground field workers in each of the countries on the new focus list and, if so, how many; and (j) what accountability measures are being put in place in each of the new countries of focus to ensure that the provisions of the Act are being adhered to?

With regard to the regional development agency for Southern Ontario mentioned in the 2009 budget: (a) what economic studies were conducted by the government with respect to the creation of a separate regional development agency for Southern Ontario, (i) when did these studies begin, (ii) which stakeholders, organizations, municipal governments were consulted, (iii) how much money has been earmarked for this new agency by the government, (iv) were any of the Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDC’s) consulted and, if so, which ones; (b) which federal electoral ridings will be under the jurisdiction of this new agency; (c) have any Aboriginal communities been consulted, especially on the Six Nations and New Credit reserves and, if so, which ones; (d) will the new agency be modeled after any of the existing regional development agencies; (e) will the new agency have a dedicated Minister, Assistant Deputy Minister and, if not, under which department will the new agency be governed; (f) what is the government’s planned date for this new agency to be fully operational; (g) have any rural groups, organizations, stakeholders been consulted in terms of the scope or mandate of this new agency and, if so, which ones; (h) what will be the mandate of this new agency; (i) what, if any, are the specific programs this agency has already committed to support and in which town or cities are these programs based; (j) what specific programs will this agency invest that will help workers, communities and businesses in Southern Ontario position themselves to take advantage of opportunities, as economic growth recovers in Canada and around the world; and (k) will the $20 million earmarked for the Eastern Ontario Development Program as stated in the 2009 Budget be in addition to the promised $1 billion for the new Southern Ontario agency, or will this $20 million come out of the $1 billion budget?