Evidence of meeting #36 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buildings.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Clearly there wasn't. You can't face a $4 billion recap bill and not consider that there was a lack of funding. So clearly and unequivocally, the answer is yes.
How will I address it? One of the reasons we hired the experts was to help us figure out — intellectualize — how we can deal with our real estate given the financing challenges we have. So this is what I'm trying to address with the experts and with the department.
5 p.m.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
We are also looking for reassurance that selling off buildings isn't going to be the number one strategy. Obviously we have a number of heritage buildings that Canadians believe are important to our collective history. Are we going to be investing in these and maintaining them as they should have been maintained over the last several years?
5 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
I will say this. If we were all starting from scratch and we had a white sheet of paper and were in government for the first day today, and we had the responsibilities we have under the Constitution to serve Canadians, I think the question deserves to be asked whether we believed we needed 370 buildings to render those services. I think, without taking a straw poll, many of us might say perhaps not. We do perhaps need buildings, and we already have some, so I think it's a question of common sense and commercial sense in terms of what we have and how we can keep it. If we're going to keep it, what's the footpath to addressing this very significant recap bill that we're facing? Furthermore, once we've done that, how do we ensure that the real estate portfolio has sufficient funding going forward so that we don't face another crunch in five, six, or seven years?
These are the issues I'm discussing right now with the department and our experts.
February 15th, 2007 / 5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Thank you, Minister. We appreciate the time that you do take, and you've been here regularly, so we do appreciate that you're here today to discuss some of these things that we've been discussing.
I'm going to continue a bit with regard to the acquisition of properties and how that happens. I understand there's been a movement afoot by our government to extend the life of leases, to move from short-term leases to long-term leases. I wonder if you could give us a status report as to where we are on that front. Are we continuing down that road?
5 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for the question. Yes, we are, most definitely.
The average lease life when I showed up was a notch or two below five years, which I find a bit surprising, given the government's ability to negotiate and the types of financial deals we could get from landlords. We need to push that out to a longer term. We'll get better deals, but also we need to stop moving people around on a short-term basis. A five-year lease means somebody moves in and you're already thinking about where they're going to go.
These moves take a lot of time. They're planned two years ahead of time. People have barely unpacked their boxes and put the family picture on the desk, and already... We've seen leases for two years, three years. I won't say that's unacceptable; there are circumstances where we can understand that they need to exist. But in most cases we need to push these leases out, give some stability to the workforce, and spend less money and time moving people around buildings across the country.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I appreciate that, and I appreciate the obvious inefficiencies that short-term leases create.
Obviously if we're going to be constructing any federal government buildings, it will be with the LEED gold standard. I'm wondering, in terms of our leases, if we have the same criteria for the buildings that we lease for the longer term.
5:05 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
That's a good question. Obviously when you sign for three years, you have no leverage with the landlord. If you sign a longer-term lease, in terms of the rental flow for that landlord it's more interesting, so then you can impose some of these conditions.
With respect to those buildings where we have longer-term leases, as we enter into them we are trying to influence the way the landlords, the owners, are looking at renovations and investments in the buildings and trying to push them toward the standards that we believe are important.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Completely out of curiosity, having pretty well exhausted most of the subjects, I'm curious if you could give us some information. Maybe you don't have it. Obviously you weren't there during this deficient business of owning properties.
I'm wondering what the mechanism was to decide to renovate certain buildings and not other buildings, and what the federal government did. I've been to some older federal government buildings that are very nicely renovated and seem to be in decent shape, whereas I've been to others that are completely dilapidated. I'm wondering, was there any type of strategy in place or was it just kind of hit and miss; or whatever bureaucrat we liked better, we renovated their building and the other folks we put into shambles? Could you give us some idea as to how that happened?
5:05 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
No, I wouldn't. I think it would be unfair to the folks in the department to suggest that they were just randomly choosing buildings. When you're building--for example, Burrard--a brand new building, as you're putting it up it's much easier to insist on LEED gold standards. The Bel-Air building in Montreal was being changed to accommodate a new federal tenant, so we used the opportunity while investing in the building to bring that building up to speed in terms of our LEED gold standards.
We use these opportunities, and as I said earlier, when we're facing a situation where we actually have to take people out of the building...because it's difficult to modernize a building when you have occupants in the building. If you think of your own home, if you're doing major renovation it's most likely you'll have to move out for a while. So when we take people out of buildings, that's when we can actually give this the LEED gold standard, but if we're just doing...not superficial, but less significant types of investments, then obviously we don't have the opportunity to affect the eco-friendliness of the building as much as if we were doing a complete revamp.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
This leads me to my next question: does the $4 million just include the actual physical reconstruction of the buildings, or does it include any of the costs that will be involved in the peripheral, including moving people in and out?
5:05 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
It's $4 billion, not $4 million.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
If it were $4 million, we'd pass the hat around here and we'd move on to something else. But it's $4 billion.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
That is just for the actual structural necessities. It has nothing to do with the peripherals.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
So obviously the bill would actually be significantly higher if you were to think of having to house these people temporarily. I appreciate that.
Thank you.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Minister, will you state unequivocally that in your code of conduct for procurement you will include that Canada's Charter of Rights and legislative sovereignty will be respected by all contracts and subcontracts?
5:05 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
We don't need to do this. Every single contract we sign with suppliers is affected by Canadian laws and is governed by Canadian laws. In those rare instances when they are not, and those are very rare instances... But in the majority of cases — and the deputy can correct me if that's wrong — the laws of Canada apply, whether they are the income tax laws, the Charter, or any type of law you can think of.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
You just said it's in rare cases that this occurs. In fact, you said that in the Senate as well, and you called it good news. Here you said that Canadians who are discriminated against in cases of these sorts of contract, have recourse to the courts.
If you stated unequivocally in your code of conduct...what is a code of conduct for? We have all the legislation necessary to make sure there is a code of conduct. But you've made the decision to have a clear code of conduct that spells out how we go about procurement. Why would you not agree that a clause be included guaranteeing that our legislative sovereignty and our Charter of Rights will be respected by all contracts?
5:10 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, the code of procurement applies between the government as a buyer of goods and Canadian companies as suppliers. It has nothing to do with ITAR, absolutely nothing. I think you're confusing, with respect, several issues.
With respect to the code of procurement, this relates to the conduct between the Government of Canada, as a buyer of goods and services, and the supply chain.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Minister, you said Canadian companies, but there are procurements, multi-billion dollar procurements, which we've been referencing, involving non-Canadian companies. Parts of those contracts flow back into Canada. There is a $1 billion contract or subcontract, or part of the Boeing contract, that includes Canadian companies. Why would there be this resistance on your part to include this in this code of conduct?
Perhaps I'll go elsewhere with this. You had previously mentioned that the Prime Minister had addressed the problematic issues concerning ITAR — the issues of infringement or the discriminatory aspects of it and the infringement on Canadian sovereignty. You said that the Prime Minister has addressed this with President Bush and that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has addressed it with the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. When was that? Did they agree to resolve this issue?
5:10 p.m.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Are you asking when that was? We can get the dates as to when these meetings took place.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
That would be helpful.
Did they agree that they would resolve this issue so that Canadian legislative sovereignty and our Charter of Rights would be respected?
