Environment Committee on Oct. 19th, 2017

[Kathleen Owens]

It's silent.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

When you talk about there being—

[Kathleen Owens]

It's a legal instrument, mostly, about ministerial administration of real property and conveyance. Justice could probably speak more accurately than I can, but it's silent on heritage as far as I know.

[Kevin Radford]

As an example, just to your point, when we sold 1 Front Street, I believe there were provisions in that sale to maintain some of the heritage characteristics, so we would work closely with the organizations that we talked about in our presentation.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Would that be in the form of a covenant on the land or property?

[Kevin Radford]

Yes.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay. I want to go back to where I was, on the idea of talking a bit about enforcement and penalties. You may have finished answering that, but we obviously ran out of time when our ruthless chair cut off the conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It was a bad day.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Was there anything else related to the idea of enforcement penalties, other than this idea—the notion of revoking a deputy's authority?

[Kathleen Owens]

There are other things. The Treasury Board can impose certain conditions on particular transactions, or on a department. I can only talk in generalities. We have done that in other areas—financial management for example. I just don't have the background.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Not as far as heritage...?

[Kathleen Owens]

As far as heritage goes, I don't have that background. I don't know if Kevin is aware of any from his firm.

[Kevin Radford]

No, and I'm not sure from a timing perspective, but when we go back to some of the comments we made about a long-term vision and plan, and a portfolio plan, and when we think about about how money is devolved in a Westminster model with 26 custodians, we tend to get into a project-by-project review as money becomes available and we look at what's in the worst shape.

If we were to be able to look at assets from a portfolio perspective—particularly heritage assets as a separate asset class—and if we were to have a long-term vision and plan for the national heritage class, etc., then we could look at funding models that would support looking after them differently.

What's interesting in the science example I used earlier is that science departments manage their own special-purpose laboratory space. As soon as they start working together and thinking from a portfolio perspective, they start recognizing that they have like assets, and maybe there are opportunities for people who work in the assets to do things together and collaborate together. So there are business opportunities as well.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

It seems though that, in the absence of any sort of federal inventory that captures things like condition, we're not actually able to make any directions on financial investment. I think that maybe there's a message here for our committee to look at that. Once again—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You're running out of time.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thanks so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're down to the end.

Before I move to the next questioner, who normally would have only three minutes, I'm looking at the clock and I'm thinking that, if I give you an extra three, so you have six minutes, this is an excellent opportunity for us to ask those detailed questions that will help guide our report.

Are you up for one round and then one more? Is that what you'd like? We'll give you another three, to give you six, and then we'll do six and six.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Wright, you mentioned the glass ceiling that will be installed in the West Block. You also referred to the former U.S. embassy, which will be devoted to the first nations.

I want to ask you something. Do the renovations of the Centre Block include plans for architectural additions? Are spaces being renovated to reproduce them as they are, or are other architectural aspects being added? If so, has there been a bidding process or a call for concept proposals?

In the second case, does that include a tribute to the first nations, or will the decor of the former U.S. embassy simply be conserved?

[Robert Wright]

Thank you for your questions.

The Centre Block is one of the most valued buildings in Canada. It will therefore be a conservation exercise first and foremost. We are not planning many changes to the building other than a new visitors' centre.

Phase one of the visitor welcome centre is being completed with the West Block. With the Centre Block, that will be extended across the front of the Centre Block to connect to the East Block, so that we have one large complex to provide additional security, as well as visitor services for Canadians and international visitors who are coming to visit Parliament Hill.

We're far from making any decisions about the Centre Block, but what I would say is, first and foremost, it's probably one of the most important buildings in Canada and we plan to really respect it as the building that it is, as well as modernizing it for your use.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

That clearly hasn't been the case for the West Block to which you are adding a glass ceiling. To answer my colleague's question, we will sit there temporarily while the work is done on Centre Block.

Can you give me an idea of the timelines and the scope of work to be done on the former U.S. embassy? How will the theme of tribute to the first nations be developed?

[Robert Wright]

That is hard to say right now. The consultations with aboriginal organizations and communities have not started yet. So we do not really have a specific vision as of yet.

Those consultations will inform the vision, which will drive decision-making around that building. Of course, the heritage fabric will be respected and it will be updated and modernized as a building. However, as far as the architectural elements that would be added to that building, in principle, if you think of something like the Sir John A. Macdonald Building, which is a heritage building that was restored and then had an addition added to it, so an adaptive reuse, it would begin to take you along the lines of thinking that will be required for a building such as the American embassy.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I have to thank you for the big hall at the Macdonald building. Having attended many events there, the key miracle is the acoustics. In such a huge box, it's a miracle that we don't have an echo all the time, like we had in the previous convention centre, where it was simply inaudible. There was no way to listen to anyone there, so thank you very much.

I am done. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Excellent.

Go ahead, Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to talk a little bit about funding and resources for the broad array of heritage buildings that we have in Canada. We've talked a lot about the parliamentary precinct.

Since the Treasury Board is here, can you paint a picture for me of the different funding sources for the different streams of projects that we have to be responsible for? There were three streams mentioned. There's the repair and maintenance, the recapitalization portion, and the rehabilitation. We have the parliamentary precinct and we have other federal government-owned heritage buildings across the country.

Where does the funding come from and what are those funding levels? We know that there was $19 million extra injected in the last budget to address repair and maintenance of heritage buildings across Canada. That's going back to $1 million. I'd be interested to know from you exactly where the different sources of funds are to actually address all of these very necessary streams of activity.

[Kathleen Owens]

I can give you a global number for how much the federal government spends on real property. That's not specific to heritage but just property generally. You can find that in the public accounts document. We spent about $10 billion, based on 2015-16 public accounts on real property.