Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on the progress of the long-term vision and plan, or LTVP. We are pleased to be here. My predecessor appeared before this committee around this time last year to report on t

Government Operations committee  Thank you for your question, Mrs. Day. It is important to make this clarification. The PricewaterhouseCoopers audits basically covered the invoice period, which includes a significant sample of invoices from the construction manager for the West Block. We plan to broaden the sco

Government Operations committee  Thank you for your questions. I'll start with your question about trades. We do in fact have the opportunity to call on a number of specialized construction trades because Parliament Hill is a very specific and complex site. These realities and this need to rehabilitate historic

Government Operations committee  Rehabilitating buildings and heritage buildings of this age comes with some particular challenges. We are doing extensive studies before going ahead with the work to ensure that we know the condition of the building and of the surrounding ground. I'll turn to my colleague, Ezio

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Trottier. Mr. Chair, there is no set cost for the long term vision and plan. In 2001, we established a 25-year vision. We quickly realized that this approach included challenges regarding cost predictability. Starting in 2007, the government approved a r

Government Operations committee  You're quite right, Mr. Trottier. The project is basically to proceed with the renovation of Centre Block, which is in itself extremely complex. In fact, we are not going to proceed the same way as we did for West Block, where we were literally able to empty all the rooms and pra

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the verb “foresee” is really appropriate, given that we are still in the pre-planning stage. We expect work to start in 2018, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. We are unsure about exactly how long the work will take, but we expect it to take at least 10 years.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer this question. Mr. Chair, so far, PWGSC has adopted very innovative approaches in order to realize projects. Since the long term vision and plan program for the parliamentary precinct was adopted, we have been able to speed up th

Government Operations committee  No. The work being done there is not part of the long term vision and plan for the parliamentary precinct.

Government Operations committee  There will, especially on the Hill, particularly with the new visitors welcome centre, which will be underground. A number of phases will correspond to each building. I'm not sure I fully understood the question.

Government Operations committee  The Government Conference Centre is another example of an innovative approach. We adjusted the strategy, which had Treasury Board approval. Now we are going to be able to move up the start date for work on Centre Block. This project is estimated at $190 million and includes majo

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. It's an important point that we looked at. We'll be able to give you much more specific answers once we have finished the design work. As you may know, we issued a call for tenders for the choice…

Government Operations committee  I am talking about design work for the interior of the Government Conference Centre.

Government Operations committee  We have put it out to tender. We expect to award a contract for detailed design early in 2014. About a year after that, we will have a very specific idea of the design for the interior. My colleague can give you details on the functional program that we are currently planning fo

Government Operations committee  We are bringing the buildings into compliance with the National Building Code, as revised. This involves making significant changes. For example, the 2005 seismic requirements for the buildings are key elements, key considerations in our work. I do not have the precise estimates