Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. I find it a very interesting panel, where you have a lot of people involved from the industry side. I certainly think it's important to have that kind of knowledge from on the ground, derived from the thousands of different buildings across this country being built with some successes and some failures. Hopefully, all of that knowledge trickles up so that you guys can present to us here today, rather than some of the big policies that sometimes are a one-size-fits-all.
What Mr. Rogers said about having to fill out paperwork for a common sense change in lighting is something I'd like to focus on later.
But, Mr. Chair, I served as a municipal councillor in British Columbia in a beautiful little town called Penticton. As we talked about some of the fads and some of the science behind some of the green techniques, they always came down to two things: zoning and the building codes.
We've already heard from Mr. Eickmeier who said that energy retrofits can be very expensive and that oftentimes you can't take the old technology out without severe disruptions and costs.
The challenge I think is to find about how we move forward.
Here again, Mr. Chair, if our witnesses, Mr. Shinewald or Mr. Smiciklas from the building owners or REALpac, Mr. Eickmeier, can't answer the following questions, I'd maybe like to ask our analyst to see if they could maybe find out.
When you build a new federal building, is it regulated under the Canadian building code? And if one of your clients were to build a building with the intention of leasing it to the federal government, does it go under the provincial building code of the day or the national building code?
I think I'll start there, Mr. Chair.