Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Fraser. Your presentation does sound a little familiar, having come from the public accounts committee.
Thank you again for coming today.
We're specifically looking at federal properties, I know, but I also know the chair gave us the opportunity to broaden that a little bit. However, it is federal properties, so I think I'll start there--and that's where I finished, actually, at the public accounts committee, in the questioning I had.
I'll come to the second part of my concern later, but my first concern is about the official residences, which are obviously more than simply residences. These are extremely important symbols of our nation and pieces of heritage that are owned jointly by all Canadians.
In particular, I think 24 Sussex is really deteriorating. You've mentioned the fact that it hasn't received major renovations in 50 years. I've had the occasion to go through it in winter, an interesting experience.
I'm wondering if you can enumerate for us the costs, as they stand now, and what those costs would be if the work is put off. In other words, what are the ramifications? From what I've heard or what I understand, this house is beginning to rapidly deteriorate, as is any home that's not properly maintained. What's the timeframe in which we need to deal with this before we start running into major concerns about really undermining this property?