Government Operations Committee on April 24th, 2007

[Michael Fortier]

Those are your numbers. I don't know where you took those numbers from.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

—that are owned by my constituents, and maybe some day your constituents, if you're elected, and therefore it's important for us to really know that our constituents are getting value. That's all.

I'm sure it would be a great comfort to them, actually having seen the report, instead of a “trust me” from you.

[Michael Fortier]

All the materials will be made public if a transaction goes ahead, Mr. Turner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I want to add one little question. I've been the public works minister, and I know we lease buildings now. They're not necessarily well run. Actually, some of them are in terrible shape.

What guarantees will we have that just because we sell them to somebody who then leases back to us that they will be in better shape? I would even submit that they're in worse shape than most of the buildings that we own, some of the ones I've seen. That's a concern of mine, because after 25 years we'll have paid for that building, and then some, and we'll have nothing left but a lease that we have to renew, and heaven knows what condition the building will be in.

[Michael Fortier]

Well, not only that, but remember, these are structural repairs that we won't have to make. It's easy to forget the financial liability, Madame Marleau. Decades of neglect have brought us to this. If we had to start all over—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Wouldn't we be better off to look after what we have and account for it differently and allow for capital expenditures on these buildings and capitalize?

[Michael Fortier]

I'm happy to do that with the balance of the portfolio. We're talking about nine buildings; the prior government was talking about 360.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Well, that never went and I'm not sure it would have. So let's deal with the present, now, and what you're proposing to do. We want justification. We would have wanted justification from the last Parliament as well.

[Michael Fortier]

Can I address your point about the quality or the relationship with some of our landlords? I have been briefed on this, and I can tell you that they're few and far between. There are still some of those buildings that are of concern to me, but because of the experiences we've gained from this relationship with some landlords who actually haven't looked after the assets, we're going to make sure in the context of this transaction that the lease we sign is going to ensure that we do not face those same issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Anyway, thank you.

I'm going to go to Mr. Albrecht, for five minutes.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Maybe I can just follow that up for 30 seconds in terms of the lease-back. Is there an option at the end of this long-term lease to purchase back? I know some leases have that. At the end of the term, you actually are the owner for a very small amount.

[Michael Fortier]

That's what we're hoping. This is part of our proposal. As I said, I want us to be able to entertain as many options as possible, but one of the options we'd like to see on the table is the ability to buy back the building for a nominal amount.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

I'd just like to follow up on a couple of things that have obviously come to the table today in terms of the great initiatives that Public Works and Government Services Canada has been taking in terms of increasing efficiency, reducing our losses, and increasing our accountability. That's obvious through the establishing of the small and medium-sized enterprises six regional offices across Canada. I think that's great.

There's one area that has been evolving over the last number of years in terms of information technology, and I see in the report that there seems to be a large variety of systems within government. It says in the report here that there are seven systems of financial and materials management and fourteen human resources management systems, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of integration. Is there is a plan to begin to at least integrate these systems?

[Michael Fortier]

That's a very good question. There are a lot of systems out there. Thankfully, the Treasury Board has an individual now who, without necessarily being called the government's chief technology officer, certainly has been given responsibility, I understand, from the Treasury Board to review all this infrastructure technology that's around here in Ottawa, to ensure that we have the right infrastructure and that systems can talk to one another and that we're not constantly replacing a system with another one without thinking of the impact on a third one that might need to interconnect with it. So I know efforts are being made in that respect through the Treasury Board.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

It would seem to me, Mr. Minister, that it's taken an awful long time. Information technology's been evolving quickly over these last number of years, and we're well into this phase and I would have thought we'd be further along in integrating these kinds of systems.

[Michael Fortier]

I agree with you. It's 2007, not 1997, and when we arrived in government last year, these deficiencies were noted.

One example that touches on us at Public Works is the claims reimbursement process. We're trying to implement a system where folks who need to see their expenses, or travel expenses, reimbursed can actually do this from their computer; there are still some people who can't. They actually have to fill out a form, send it to a superior, who then sends it to a third person, who then sends it to central office. This, frankly, is unacceptable.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I agree.

[Michael Fortier]

So we're addressing this at Public Works, and hopefully we'll have systems in place to make sure we don't need to have so many people involved between the time one files a claim reimbursement form and the time one actually gets reimbursed.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Another initiative of the Federal Accountability Act was the appointment of a procurement ombudsman. I'm wondering if you could just update us as to the progress on that and the timeline you envision.

[Michael Fortier]

I'll ask Mr. Marshall to address that.

[David Marshall]

There was a national advertisement for candidates and a number of good candidates came forward. Interviews have been conducted by a team that included the Privy Council Office, our office, and the Treasury Board. I believe a selection and offer will be made shortly, and hopefully the candidate will accept.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Okay, thank you.

I have one last question on the theme of continuing to improve the efficiency of government. I know there's an initiative to reduce the amount of square footage for full-time-equivalent employees, and I believe the ultimate goal is 18 square metres. I know that's going to take some time to implement, to go from 21.4 square metres to 18 square metres, but could you update us as to what progress there has been on that initiative?

[Tim McGrath]

Actually it's been a very successful program. When we started the initiative, there was average use of 21.4 metres per full-time-equivalent, or FTE. We've since reduced that down to 19.8 square metres, which may not sound like much—a 1.6 square metre improvement in utilization—but when you consider the number of public servants we house, in excess of 240,000, it translates into an excess of 300,000 square metres of office accommodation saved. At $300 a metre, the average price across the country, that's $90 million a year we've saved from this initiative alone.

So it's been quite a successful initiative for us, and one that I would say the community at large has embraced, as we're getting good cooperation from all departments on this initiative.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Absolutely. I can tell you that my constituents would be very pleased to hear about those savings.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Madame Bourgeois.