Allocations from Treasury Board Central Votes for Supplementary Estimates (C), 2020-21

Funding for reimbursement of broadcasting licence fees (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $50,000,000 to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to reimburse Part II broadcasting license fees to television stations, radio stations and for discretionary television services. These reimbursements will provide financial relief to Canadian television and radio broadcasters facing significant declines in advertising revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding to increase dispute resolution capacity

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $3,700,000 to the Canadian Transportation Agency for the timely hiring of personnel to support the Air Complaint Resolution Program. Additional staff will help address complaints from air passengers with respect to flight delays and cancellations, denied boarding, tarmac delays of three hours or more, lost or damaged baggage and accessibility issues in the aviation sector.

This allocation was entirely repaid upon supply of the 2020-21 Supplementary Estimates (B) in December 2020.

Funding for the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (COVID-19)

This allocation allowed the Department of Employment and Social Development to address outstanding applications for the “Canada Emergency Student Benefit” and ensure timely benefit payments to eligible recipients.

Funding to support Canada’s fish harvesters (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $70,000,000 to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to provide uninterrupted payments to self-employed fish harvesters across the country. This financial assistance will help mitigate economic disruptions in the fisheries sector resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and create greater economic certainty for fish harvesters ineligible for other federal relief programs.

The recent allocation of $1,800,000 covered urgent payments for the “Grant Program to Support Self-employed Fish Harvesters in Canada Affected by COVID-19” between January 15 and January 31, 2021, to ensure uninterrupted delivery of the program. An additional $6,494,524 was also provided in the fall for payments between October 1 and October 2, 2020.

Funding for revenue protection against the reduction in demand in legal services (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $46,000,000 to the Department of Justice to help offset revenue shortfalls caused by court closures and the reduced use of litigation services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding for critical operating requirements (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $12,000,000 to the Office of the Auditor General to address immediate operational challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to modernize audit tools and information technology systems.

Funding for security and information technology requirements

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $658,000 to the Office of the Intelligence Commissioner to acquire secure network connectivity, meet mandatory security and information technology requirements and obtain the technical expertise needed to address workload demands.

Funding to support the audiovisual industry (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $49,654,000 to Telefilm Canada to provide timely payments from the Short-Term Compensation Fund to eligible Canadian audiovisual producers for COVID-19 related impacts. This program will compensate production companies for the interruption or shutdown of eligible audiovisual productions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and help reduce the consequences created by the lack of private pandemic insurance coverage for this sector.

Funding for critical operating requirements (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $6,876,000 to the Federal Bridge Corporation Limited to continue the safe operation and maintenance of the four international bridges within its portfolio. This funding will be used for critical operating requirements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including associated cross-border travel restrictions.

Funding for critical operating requirements (COVID-19)

The Treasury Board authorized an allocation of up to $187,500,000 to VIA Rail Canada Inc. to ensure the continuation of its core operations and services. This funding will partially offset the significant decline in ridership and revenue shortfall caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funding for the Application Modernization Initiative

This allocation allowed the Canada Border Services Agency to assess their inventory of legacy applications and build technical capacity to support their migration into more secure modern data centres or cloud services.

Funding for the Application Modernization Initiative

This allocation allowed the Canada Revenue Agency to assess their inventory of legacy applications and build technical capacity to support their migration into more secure modern data centres or cloud services.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will support the acquisition and implementation of an online dispute resolution platform to facilitate the efficient and effective administration of compliance and enforcement activities under Canada’s new Pay Equity regime.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will improve the organization’s internal regulatory costing capacity and expertise. It will support a detailed costing study of the organization’s regulatory regime and nuclear security requirements, and a review of the organization’s regulatory framework to assess its readiness to regulate fusion technologies.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will be provided to the Community of Federal Regulators to support the development of training courses in cost-benefit analysis and an operational plan and implementation strategy to recruit and retain cost-benefit analysts in the Government of Canada.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will be used to establish and test a prototype centralized service for issuing and verifying digital credentials. This service will help make it quicker, easier and more cost-effective for regulators to issue and verify digital licences and permits. Funding will also support the development and promotion of a competition assessment toolkit that will enable regulators to better assess the potential impacts of their regulatory proposals on the competitiveness of Canadian businesses.

Funding for the Application Modernization Initiative

This allocation allowed the Department of Industry to assess their inventory of legacy applications and build technical capacity to support their migration into more secure modern data centres or cloud services.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will be used to identify and implement a digital tool to streamline and shorten the regulatory review process for mining projects moving from exploration to production.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will support four regulatory initiatives:

• an initiative to reduce the regulatory reporting burden for businesses and improve the department’s efficiency in regulatory data collection and management;
• to develop and implement a public-facing, web-based Regulatory Discover Tool that will provide industry and other stakeholders with a centralized portal of regulatory information;
• to develop an automated tool for the National Pollutant Release Inventory to improve published information on releases, disposals and transfers of pollutants across Canadian facilities; and
• to support activities that improve the department’s foresight analysis capacity and incorporates foresight considerations into programs and throughout the policy cycle.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will be used to develop a cumulative regulatory impact analysis (CRIA) framework to analyze the cumulative impacts of transportation regulations, and to build an online portal to make CRIA information publicly available and searchable. Funding will also be used to develop novel testing methodologies to evaluate the safety of new vehicle technologies and support road safety regulatory design.

Funding from the Regulators’ Capacity Fund to promote an innovative and competitive regulatory framework

This funding will help regulators improve their capacity to incorporate economic and competitive considerations in the design and implementation of regulations.

This allocation will be used to develop a prototype of an accredited third-party conformity assessment program to test artificial intelligence in Canada. This initiative will help regulators address safety and ethical risks associated with the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Funding for the Application Modernization Initiative

This allocation allowed the Treasury Board Secretariat to assess their inventory of legacy applications and build technical capacity to support their migration into more secure modern data centres or cloud services.