Evidence of meeting #40 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.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
That was my sense, that there would be a response in terms of the market. Obviously, that's a positive thing as we look forward.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
That will obviously lead to the perpetuation of this type of movement. Certainly, that's fantastic.
I noticed in the documentation you had that five buildings in Alberta had asked for registration. Is that right? Only one had been certified. I'm wondering if they are still waiting to be certified or did they not pass the test?
President, Canada Green Building Council
Most buildings that go through certification with us do actually pass the test, but it depends on which stage they're registering the building. The average building period, probably from design to completion, is about two to three years. LEED Canada has only been around since December 2004.
What you see now is that buildings have registered--particularly on the commercial and institutional side, these buildings take a long time to design and to construct--and then they submit the documentation. Sometimes they finish it, and then three months after they submit the documentation, it takes us two or three months to do the certification as well. So that's the delay.
Actually, Alberta is one of the provinces that is very proactive on green buildings. They have been first in everything. They had the first city, Calgary, to have a green building policy, and Alberta was the first province in the country to have a green building policy. They have a lot of buildings under way, so there is a huge level of commitment in the province of Alberta to this.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Yes, absolutely. We're noticing the movement is gaining steam pretty aggressively there, so we certainly do appreciate your involvement in this.
Following up, I just want to talk a little bit about the other program in terms of the utilization of the product. Obviously there is going to be a major cost saving for people who actively pursue the reduction of materials. I'm wondering if you could give us a cost analysis, or in terms of a percentage.
Executive Vice-President, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada Inc.
That's part of the reason I included the information I did as a quote. This is a relatively young program, so we don't have the history yet for those statistics, but we're in the process of compiling those as part of the process of receiving the information from the submissions. Once we have some of that information, I can provide it to you.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Obviously it's added motivation for anybody to become involved, and I'm a strong believer that cost drives a lot of attitudes sometimes, so it certainly--
Executive Vice-President, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada Inc.
Absolutely, and certainly for the government as well as for the private sector, the bottom line is certainly one of the factors. We know there are savings. We just haven't been able to put an amount on it.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Madam Chair, do we know whether Mr. Mueller is with us for a little while yet or...?
President, Canada Green Building Council
It's at 6:30, so I still have a bit of time.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
I'll still ask your question right away.
At the last meeting I was bragging about the Manitoba Hydro building in Winnipeg. It is supposed to be one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world. It would cost zero to heat or to cool for six months out of the year, which is impressive.
I'm just wondering if they're registered with LEED or if you would know that.
President, Canada Green Building Council
Actually they said they would go to LEED gold, and there is word that they are actually aspiring to the highest level of certification.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
That brings me to my second question. When you're talking about gold and silver ratings, can you attach numbers to that? In other words, you have your regular building code standards, and after that if you go to silver, is it 10% more efficient than building code? If you go to gold, is it 20% more efficient? Are there numbers you could give us?
President, Canada Green Building Council
Maybe I can explain it this way. You have 70 credits in LEED, and there are also prerequisites, so these are things that all the buildings have to meet. If they can't meet those prerequisites, they can't use the LEED system.
In Canada, just on the energy side, our LEED system is tied to the commercial buildings incentive program, which is a percentage above the Model National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings. So in terms of prerequisite, you actually have to achieve already a higher level of energy performance to even be able to participate in the program. And it's also a higher level than what the U.S. has in its LEED program, so we actually went higher.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Mr. Mueller, I'm going to have to cut you off there because I do have one question for Ms. Cross--actually two questions.
Maybe you could tell us about the extent of the work you're doing right now with Public Works in terms of numbers. How many buildings are you certifying for Public Works now, and is that number increasing on a yearly basis?
Secondly, how are the buildings selected? Who decides which building you would select to certify? Is it based on the least efficient building?
Executive Vice-President, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada Inc.
In answer to your first question, there actually are three Public Works buildings that are already certified. Those were ones that independently chose to apply for the program before we established the understanding that it was going to be rolled out across the portfolio.
We're working with the Public Works team and the Office of Greening Government Operations to establish the schedule to roll it out across the country.
In answer to your second question, it's not—
Liberal
Executive Vice-President, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada Inc.
Not as we speak.
Liberal
Executive Vice-President, Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada Inc.
Not at the moment. I mean, we have a list; we're just putting—
