Evidence of meeting #78 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was building.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Right. I guess at the time, as well, considerations like earthquake protection were not part of the....
Is the visitor welcome centre part of the $800-million cost you mentioned for the West Block, or is that a separate additional cost?
9:55 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Parliamentary Precinct, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The visitor welcome centre is a separate project with a separate cost of approximately $129 million.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Right.
Do the plans for the Centre Block involve glassing over any of the courtyards at this stage, as was done for the West Block courtyard?
10 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Parliamentary Precinct, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We're quite far away from making those types of decisions at this point. That will involve, of course, working with the parliamentary partners—the House of Commons, the Senate, the Library of Parliament, and Parliamentary Protective Service—to see if that meets the accommodation requirements of Parliament, and if it makes sense from the perspectives of heritage and other key drivers.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Sure.
In the West block, was the glassing over of the courtyard—
10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt, because I usually never interrupt, but we have such a short time and this is our last meeting with witnesses. I want to make sure we get to the essence of the questions that we're going to reflect in the report.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Fair enough. I'm not familiar with the report. Could I just ask this? It'll just take a second to ask this one question, and then I'll ask Madam Charrois to respond with the remaining time that's available.
Was that one of the major components of the cost? Would that have been a very high proportion? I ask this because it will be relevant to Centre Block.
10 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Parliamentary Precinct, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It was quite a small proportion actually. We needed to provide a chamber, and the type of space that would provide that type of functionality is very limited within the geographic boundaries. In totality, I think it was a smart investment, and having a glass roof versus another type of roof was a very small portion of the overall cost.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Okay. Thank you very much.
Madam Charrois, could you respond, then, to Mr. Fast's earlier question?
10 a.m.
Director, Cultural Heritage Policies, Parks Canada Agency
Could you repeat the question, please? Sorry about that.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Yes. You've followed the testimony at this table, and there's a host of recommendations that have been made. We've been asked to incorporate them into our report. Are there any that stand out as perhaps not being workable, or as being inadvisable?
10 a.m.
Director, Cultural Heritage Policies, Parks Canada Agency
Workable is one thing. The feasibility of the recommendations is a different aspect that may deserve some thinking. There are medium- to short-term and medium- to long-term advantages to some of the proposals that were made. Depending on where this committee wants to go, there are things that could be achieved fairly rapidly and others that would need more thinking and more refinement.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Can I follow up on Mr. Aldag's questions? He never actually completed that discussion about leased properties and having a policy that would make any lease procurement focused firstly on heritage buildings in Canada. These are privately, municipally, or provincially owned heritage buildings that would form the first front in securing building space for the federal government.
Can anybody comment on that?
10 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I am not aware—in any of our leasing clauses—that we give a higher order of magnitude of favour, if you will, to a heritage leased property versus a non-heritage leased property.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Is that something that is workable and could find its way into this report? My guess is that there's going to be a fair bit of discussion around this table about including that kind of a recommendation, so your views on that are very helpful.
10 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's a great suggestion, and if I can do something analogous in the area of greening, certainly the federal government and PSPC—given it has roughly 6.1 million metres squared of office space—can influence the leasing environment to be more sustainable and green by putting different clauses into our leasing contracts that encourage or give favour to landowners and lessees who are supporting sustainment and greening. We're definitely looking at that, so I don't understand why we couldn't look at clauses in and around heritage as well.
10 a.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
In the Treasury Board brief, there's a statement that the “Treasury Board Policy on Management of Federal Real Property does not apply to Crown corporations”. Could we actually extend that reach, or is there something within the relationship of the government to crown corps that would prevent that?
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Comptroller General, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
It would have to be based in legislation because, as you know, crown corporations operate at arm's length from the government, so the current legislative framework is that the Treasury Board administrative policy does not apply to them. There are different ways you could do that. You could alter legislation, obviously. You can use an order in council and direct the crown corps for a specific thing that you want them to do.
There are also less formal ways. You could use a ministerial letter: the President of the Treasury Board could write to all his ministerial colleagues for something specific and say, “I encourage you, as ministers responsible for crown corporations, to enact or ask your crown corporations to follow the spirit and intent of this particular policy initiative.” We have some levers with crowns, and there are different ways you can do that.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Okay, great. Thank you. I believe it was the PSPC brief that noted the number of federal properties. Is there one consolidated report that captures asset conditions specifically for heritage properties in the country, or would each custodial department have their own inventory, and you would have to go searching between the 28, or...?
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Comptroller General, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
In terms of a central directory of federal real property, it's only for building conditions. It doesn't have anything specific to heritage. Custodial departments would have to gather that information themselves and proactively add it, but it is something we possibly could consider for future addition to the reporting requirements for the centralized real property inventory.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
But as of today, we wouldn't be able to ask for a submission on the state of the federal built heritage in the federal government's—
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Comptroller General, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General of Canada
No. Not that I am aware.
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Again, that doesn't mean it isn't possible. I'll use the example of asbestos. Under former minister Judy Foote, we posted all of the buildings that contain asbestos, and then we reached out to the leasing environment. We made sure of whether or not they had an asbestos management plan associated with them, and we posted this publicly. Treasury Board then asked us to work with the other custodians, not to do a registry but to tell us whether they have asbestos in those buildings, etc. I guess you could use the same kind of thinking and criteria in and around heritage as well.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I personally didn't have a lot of involvement with the Federal Real Property and Federal Immovables Act when I was in the public service. I dealt with many other pieces of legislation.
What kind of guidance or protection is given under that act, specific to heritage? Is it silent on it?