Government Operations Committee on March 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

The witnesses wouldn't actually be in a position to speak for the position contained in the report of a parliamentary committee, whether it was concurred with by the House or not, but they may have a comment on whether there is a government position on asbestos generally.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

If we could bring it back to the LEED question, do you deal with this when you're trying to achieve the LEED standards, be they silver or gold? How do you jive that with the fact that all of these buildings are rife with this toxin?

[Ellen Burack]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I can't speak to the existence or non-existence. To the best of my knowledge, there is no directive to use more asbestos, certainly in Public Works. Public Works represents about a quarter of the federal inventory of buildings. I would be surprised if other custodians were implementing such a directive.

With respect to LEED and our commitments vis-à-vis LEED, our LEED gold commitment is for entirely new construction, so we're not dealing with any legacy issues. Our LEED silver commitment is with respect to major renovations. I'm quite confident that as part of those major renovations, any asbestos in the buildings that are being renovated is being dealt with appropriately. Certainly it has not been a problem for us to achieve our LEED silver objectives with respect to those major renovations.

With respect to existing buildings, which is to a certain extent where you've started with the federal buildings initiative program, I would note that for Public Works-owned buildings, we have a commitment to use another tool in the marketplace, the Building Owners and Managers Association's Go Green Plus program. We've already assessed 176 of our 350 buildings through that program. We've been very satisfied with the results we have received relative to those. In fact, over the course of last year, in five of the ten provinces across the country, Public Works buildings were the best performing buildings of all the buildings in the marketplace that were assessed with that BOMA Go Green Plus tool. So we're learning about the performance of our buildings through the use of that tool. We're building that learning into our building plans, and in some cases we're finding out that we have some buildings with excellent performance.

We have used the federal buildings initiative quite extensively, as have other departments. Not all buildings are appropriate for the use of that kind of mechanism. In some cases departments have had difficulty using the program because there wasn't an interest in the private sector in taking on those types of situations. In those cases, where there are good opportunities for energy efficiency savings, the custodians have taken alternative approaches.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Could I ask a little bit of detail about that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

If you can ask your question in five seconds.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

On the forms of financing for these initiatives, why are we waiting for energy service companies to pay for the energy retrofit up front? Wouldn't that be a logical place to use our Canada Pension Plan money, or just government general revenue? If the payback for a building envelope retrofit is five or seven years, and there's no outside commercial financer willing to undertake that, wouldn't it be a compelling case to do it anyway for all the right reasons? It would stimulate the economy, create jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Why wait for an outside contractor to say they'll do it for you if there's a business case for doing it at all?

[Ellen Burack]

I can speak for Public Works activity in that regard. We're not waiting. We have an active program aimed at energy efficiency related to control systems in buildings, lighting, and other things. Also, as we go through our normal repairs and maintenance of buildings, as windows and HVAC systems are being replaced, energy efficiency opportunities are seized at that time.

So I don't think it's fair to assume that because a building is not run through an ESCO and through the federal buildings initiative, it has not received energy efficiency upgrading.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

Ms. Hall Findlay for five.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have learned a new French word today and I will try to use it. I want to congratulate the government and all the people who contribute to the écologisation of government operations and federal buildings.

I want to follow on a little bit with my colleague's questioning about federal buildings and eco-retrofits. We're in the middle of an economic crisis. We have a government that is looking to spend an awful lot of money very quickly, and in fact the very quickly part is of particular importance. We have in opposition raised some real concerns about the timing of some of these projects getting out there, some of the challenges with infrastructure money getting out the door, but we also have a very strong understanding...and you yourself said earlier that more can always be done.

We have been advocating for some time an increased level of eco-retrofits of federal buildings, enhancing the expenditure on that. So at this particular time it seems logical that this be an area where the government spend money, and in addition there would be the long-term taxpayer money savings that energy efficiency would engender.

My question is this. When you say more can always be done, and in the context of a government looking for--to use an overused term--shovel-ready projects, where are you in hypothetically being able to use money to do significant eco-retrofitting of buildings, over and above your existing plans? Would you be able to use significant government expenditure now to accomplish some of these things in a relatively short timeframe?

[Ellen Burack]

Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that colleagues dealing with the accelerated infrastructure spending have been to this committee and have had a conversation about that particular program.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm not talking about the infrastructure program, because you're right, but I'm asking you because of your expertise in the greening efforts and your understanding of the opportunity for eco-retrofitting of government buildings, would you be able to ramp up significantly if you had more money right now to spend? So if the government were to be able to say, here, we're going to give you more money than was originally anticipated, would you be able to use that to retrofit more quickly buildings you would like to see retrofitted?

[Ellen Burack]

Mr. Chair, I would find it very hard to speculate about that. At this time what I can say, though, is that the environmental objectives that we have for our regular spending within Public Works and Government Services, the standards that we work towards, will be no different for the additional activities. So through the repairs and maintenance that are accelerated through that funding, there will be energy efficiency improvements seen, for example, because of that accelerated focus on repairs and maintenance and the types of repairs and maintenance that are naturally done in the course of the life of a building.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

But again, my question follows on your own comment earlier that more can always be done. In the realm of eco-retrofits of federal buildings, for example, could you do more now or over the next six to nine months if you had more money from the government to spend on this?

[Ellen Burack]

Mr. Chair, what I would say with respect to this is that often these projects take some time to plan and develop. Shovel-ready LEED platinum projects are not sort of on a shelf, and therefore it may not be as easy as one might think to do that kind of thing in a highly accelerated way. I feel quite uncomfortable speculating about what could or could not be done. It would involve a lot more.... I don't know what the capacity is to absorb that type of activity. My span of control is quite limited relative to what would be required to deliver the kind of program you're referring to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Mr. Roy.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a very technical question for you, Ms. Burak. At the beginning of your statement, you said that key departments agreed in 2008 to implement this policy. Which departments were you referring to? Was it Environment Canada, Public Works and Treasury Board?

[Ellen Burack]

It is those departments and about a dozen others. We focused our efforts on clarifying roles and responsibilities among those departments that have the most significant environmental footprint themselves, such as the Department of National Defence, Correctional Services, Parks Canada--the biggest landholder of the agencies--the National Research Council, and Natural Resources Canada. About 14 departments have been involved in our discussions to clarify roles and responsibilities.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

They are part of the discussions but the policy applies to all departments.

At the present time, Public Works and Government Services has a strong tendency to dispose of government buildings by selling them to the private sector and then leasing space in them. Of course, the government of Canada is not only an owner of buildings, it is also a tenant all over the country.

Do you have any standards for leased buildings? Do the high standards applying to government-owned buildings also apply to leased buildings?

[Ellen Burack]

You are right to raise the issue of leasing. It's an important issue, and green leasing is one of the things we are working very actively on.

For our long-term leases, we do require that buildings be LEED gold. For leases of greater than 10,000 square metres, as those leases are renewed or new leases come up, we require that a BOMA Go Green Plus assessment be done of the building so that we can evaluate our opportunity to lease that space. We ask that the landlord manage the space using a different BOMA program, the BOMA Go Green program, in new and existing buildings as well.

We think this issue is so important that we are actually working with a group of our colleagues in the provinces to develop a model green lease, if you will, some clauses that we could draw from to further green our leasing activities. It is a challenge. You can't make the same demands in every market across the country, and certainly our levers for making environmental improvements are more limited than they are when we are owners. But it is an area of significant attention that we are working on.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I understand that challenge. I understand that you must have standards and requirements but have you reached a certain percentage? When you have to rent space, I suppose it is more difficult to find buildings meeting all your standards and requirements.

To give me an idea of the success of your operations, could you tell me what is the percentage of leased space in relation to government-owned space?

[Ellen Burack]

As far as I know, Mr. Chairman, there is no performance measure I could point to that would demonstrate in a comprehensive way the performance of our leases. Really the approach we have taken is to have these exigences up front to ensure that walking into the lease we're getting the greenest possible space. But I have no further measure to offer to you on that.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

You referred to the end of the life cycle of products. We know that recycling company face very serious problems at this time because of the economic crisis, since the demand for some of their products has been significantly reduced. For example, the House of Commons has to get rid of several tons of paper each year.

Does the government find it difficult to dispose of products for recycling?

[Ellen Burack]

Could I ask for some clarification? You said that we've had difficulty disposing of it. Could you explain a little more about what you mean by that?

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Recycling companies find it difficult to sell their products at this time. I gave you the example of paper. Is the government able to dispose of such goods as paper, computers, etc.?

[Ellen Burack]

To date, we haven't had difficulty disposing of it. But I can tell you that you're right and there is an issue. For something like paper, there is likely to be a cost associated with recycling paper in the future, whereas there has not been a cost associated with it in the past. Those are issues that we will have to grapple with in going forward.