(Return tabled) Question No. 390 Hon. John McCallum: With regard to the one-third of projects funded by the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund that will not be completed by the end of 2010, as indicated on page 66 of the government’s report entitled “Canada's Economic Action Plan — A Sixth Report to Canadians”, for each project: (a) what city was it in; (b) what is its description; (c) what was the total federal contribution; (d) what was the estimated cost of completing the project at the time of application; (e) what is the current estimate of the total cost of completing the project; (f) on what date was the project approved for fundin ...[+++]g by the government; (g) on what date was the project publicly announced; and (h) on what date was the contribution agreement for the project signed?

The coordinators will draw up an annual report on progress made with regard to implementation of the project, developments which might affect the characteristics of the projects and any difficulties and obstacles which could result in significant delays vis-à-vis project completion dates.

These sections are lagging further behind than any other priority projects; which justifies increased support; recourse to public-private partnership (PPP) could provide solutions "for some projects", but, given the "cost and risks", "private capital injections will be lower "; the CoR recognises the importance of the EIB's role but notes that this contribution would not be enough to finance all of the major projects; the CoR calls for greater synergy of TEN-Ts with the Structural Funds but warns against using the cohesion funds to finance TEN-Ts; to find new sources of revenue, the creation of "charges for a specific purpose" such ...[+++]as "user charge stickers" could be considered.

At the time of the external evaluation, 9 projects had been completed, 46 were open (under implementation), and 3 had been terminated.

With the completion of the 1992 selection process the TEMPUS Scheme -launched in 1990- and now covering 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe - is now achieving its full potential: TEMPUS is now supporting a critical mass of altogether 637 Joint European Projects (JEPS) designed to upgrade and restructure higher education in 10 Central and Eastern European countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and Romania.

Turning to the completion of energy networks, the level of funding (about ECO 500 million) is designed to complete the projects already identified by the Commission in the 1990 Regen initiative, namely: - the completion of transmission pipelines for the introduction of natural gas into certain parts of Portugal and Greece; - completion of interconnections between the electricity networks of Italy and Greece; - the establishment of interconnections between the gas transport systems of Portugal and Spain.