Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
I'm especially grateful to the ADM for real property for being here. We've been trying for a number of years to find out more details about the business case--the reason and logic behind selling off our assets and then leasing them back for 25 years. No one will ever table a business case that says this is a good idea. Now you're coming to us asking for $111 million, partly so you can pay rent for buildings that you've just sold.
I asked the Auditor General to investigate this most recent deal, where you sold off buildings that you'd just spent tens of millions of dollars renovating at what could be fire sale prices--nobody will tell us what they got. There's the Harry Hays building, the Joseph Sheppard Building in Toronto, the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building here, and the Skyline complex here. You didn't divest yourselves of those buildings because they were surplus or because you didn't need them any more; you leased them back from this developer with a 25-year lease. We don't know if that was a good deal or not, or if it was just some neo-conservative ideology that you were directed to do. I'm glad to have you here so we can finally ask some questions.
What was the logic behind selling off our public assets, part of our heritage, our collectively owned property, to balance the budget? How much of this will be going to pay rent in all those buildings you just sold?
Second, the finance minister has booked $2 billion worth of asset sales that he hasn't even sold yet, in part of this budget. What else is on the chopping block? What else are you going to sell of our publicly owned buildings, in keeping with this policy trend of sell it all and lease it back, no matter if you have to come back to committees like this and beg for more money to keep paying more and more rent?
Some of us think this is the biggest corporate giveaway since the drug patent laws were extended. The private sector is just wringing their hands waiting to get their hands on these properties. You're not selling off the dogs; you're selling off the crown jewels half the time. These are buildings you just put tens of millions of dollars into renovating, and now you're selling them in the worst possible climate for commercial real estate in recent history, and leasing them back at sweetheart deals. Where is the business case, and where is the reason and logic behind that policy?
