Thank you Madam Chair.
Hello Mr. Minister, Mr. Deputy Minister and Mr. Assistant Deputy Minister.
In the past few days I have re-read various reports, including a report by the firm CB Richard Ellis that Mr. McGrath had commissioned in April 2004. I also re-read a report by the Auditor General of Canada.
According to the report by CB Richard Ellis of 2003-04, the real property inventory was poorly managed. The report noted, among other things: lack of sufficient capital reinvestment; too many real property advisors, from a human resources perspective; poor internal management capacity in the department; high turnover of projet managers; overlap of technical reviews; ineffective and costly implementation processes; inadequate infrastructure to assess the final cost of projects, and so forth.
In 2005, Public Works and Government Services Canada, PWGSC, did what it could to lower the cost of the buildings and governmental expenses, because the federal government's Expenditure Review Committee had determined that real property activities could be a source for saving a billion dollars. The Auditor General of Canada verified that and even congratulated PWGSC for proposing a plan that could save not just a billion dollars, but $1.5 billion in property management.
Mr. Minister, in light of the report that I read, it is obvious that things needed to be cleaned up. Either the department needs to be cleaned up, which would take a lot of political courage, in my opinion, or, like Pontius Pilate, the department needs to wash its hands of the whole thing and sell off its buildings.
Mr. Minister, is $1.2 billion of the taxpayers' money, the net cost we will pay out in 25 years, not a high price to pay for lack of leadership?