Department of unanswered questions

Here are two questions I've asked the government without answer

It’s been a frustrating few days here at Inkless Labs, as I wait for the government to deliver terrible non-answers to basic questions. These two have now gone without answer for some time. If I get answers I’ll share them. If I don’t, I’ll write posts on both files anyway.

The first question concerns a multi-billion-dollar program that was shut down without explanation on a day’s notice, an event that has so far been ignored by every news organization in the country except the Globe and Mail. The second concerns a platform commitment the Trudeau Liberals made twice and haven’t yet delivered.

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I sent this question yesterday at noon to the offices of the minister of innovation (François-Philippe Champagne) and of small business (Rechie Valdez), as well as to the public servants in the innovation ministry. It’s about the sudden and unexplained end to the main component of the Canada Digital Adoption Program. For background on that program, read my previous posts here and here.

Hi, I'm a reporter in the Press Gallery. My deadline for this query is 5 pm Ottawa time, today, Monday.

I'm sending these questions simultaneously to the minister's office and to ISED comms. I note that a Globe reporter was able to get quick answers to his questions on this file last week, so I am giddy with optimism about my chances of having similar luck. If, however, you need more time, please specify why.

Here are my questions:

1. The Canadian Digital Adoption Program's "February Update" note to stakeholders said that demand for CDAP is "unprecedented" and demand for Boost Your Business Technology is "almost fully subscribed." But the Globe reported last week that demand for Boost Your Business tech is "far below target."

How do you reconcile these two depictions of demand for Boost Your Business Tech? Was it approximately one-eighth of the program target, or was it fully subscribed?

2. In response to previous queries, I was told that as of November 30, 2022, 12,000 businesses had completed a Digital Needs Assessment; 4,195 firms have signed grant agreements; 1,123 had received grant payments; BDC had approved 312 loan applications for a total of $17.6 million.

Please update all five of these criteria. How many firms received Digital Needs Assessments in calendar year 2023? Also, for calendar year 2023 for each of the following questions: How many signed grant agreements? How many received grant payments? How many loan applications did BDC approve? For what total dollar amount?

Please note that I began this question by showing you the data you gave me a year ago, to demonstrate that you have this sort of information handy and should have no difficulty answering all five parts of this question with precise numeric answers.

3. Nobody I know has been able to get any information on the number of work placements funded under CDAP's agreement with Magnet [a skills-development NGO created at the university now named Toronto Metropolitan University — pw]. And yet, as Magnet itself pointed out, it received a "multi-million dollar grant" to "provide thousands of work placements to students." The program's original announcement mentioned a figure of 28,000 work placements.

How many work placements has CDAP provided to date to students, either through Magnet or through other mechanisms? How much has Magnet been paid? 

Thank you for your help.

Note my use of the absurd convention of stating my deadline at the outset. Reporters submitting questions are asked what their deadline is, if they do not pre-emptively declare a deadline. Every reporter in Ottawa is used to these deadlines being ignored. I did get an email from an official yesterday saying they were working on my query but they might not be able to get back to me before 5 p.m. They sure didn’t. Nor did they get back to me before 5 p.m. today. My problem, I see now, is that every day has a 5 p.m., so I may never get an answer.

But I am happy to make myself a pest, because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself announced the beginning of this program, so by God, I will hear somebody in his government explain its end.

The thing that absolutely astonishes me is that as far as I can tell, no other news organization in the country is seeking these explanations. [UPDATE: Much less surprised to learn that my friend Murad Hemmadi at The Logic did indeed ask one of his rigorous, tough questions on this file today. At 36:00 in this video. Champagne’s answer is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.]

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My other unanswered question was occasioned by a tweet from the PM on Feb. 16, the day of Alexei Navalny’s extra-judicial killing in Russia:

I endorse this sentiment but I’m always wondering what defending democracy entails. Of course there are many possible answers. In their 2019 platform, now nearly five years distant, the Liberals suggested this answer:

The promise was repeated in the Liberals’ 2021 platform and was one of the pledges Canada made at Joe Biden’s first (virtual) Democracy Summit at the end of 2021. I thought I’d ask the PM’s staff what was up. I sent this email to the PMO:

Hi all,

The PM wrote today about the necessity of tirelessly promoting democracy. The Liberal Party promised a "Centre for the Promotion of Peace, Order and Good Government" in the elections of 2019 and 2021, and the PM repeated the promise at President Biden's first Democracy Summit in autumn 2021. There was a secretariat established at GAC in 2022 and, as far as I can ascertain, it ended its work last summer.

Where's the democracy promotion agency? Any plans to announce it?

I sent that email on a Friday. It was Monday before anyone in the PMO acknowledged receipt of the thing. They handed it off to Global Affairs, who haven’t answered more than a week later. (Handing it off to Global Affairs is a bullshit move, of course: it will be the PMO that decides whether a promise on this scale is ever implemented. Indeed it is the PMO that has decided not to implement it so far.) The bit about a secretariat is something that’s well known around Ottawa, though nobody has reported that, either.

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It’s tremendously frustrating to bug all of you with questions I can’t get answered. It’s a pretty frank and quite public admission of the limits of my clout in this town. If I’m honest, it’s embarrassing.

But I shouldn’t need clout. I’m a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, an institution this government claims to value, in contrast to the party that’s currently 17 points ahead of it in the polls. And I have obligations to the 22,000 people who will receive this post in their email. If I cannot give you answers, I can at least tell you what I’ve been asking.

Indeed, you should not need me to ask. This government sought credit for announcing these things. It should have the basic decency to explain why they have not gone well. This prime minister used to brag about believing this sort of thing.

I will let you know if I hear further on these files.

UPDATE: Congratulations to ISED for delivering answers on the CDAP questions, shortly after 6 pm today! I’ll write a post on their answers, and some other stuff I’ve learned, tomorrow. (Gotta push a podcast episode out too.) Your move, GAC.