Government Operations Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[Alex Lakroni]

It is being led by OSME.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

That's helpful information.

We as a committee some years ago became concerned about the state of the real property the government owned. There was some discussion that there had been an accumulated deficit in the infrastructure of federally owned properties. What is the current state of affairs? Obviously, the government and your department have been working hard, and we see continued funds being spent in this area. Are we getting ahead of the problem, or are we just putting band-aids on it?

[John McBain]

Thank you for the question. I'd like to answer it in two fashions: the nature of the funding for our program, and some of the specific initiatives that are addressed in the supplementary estimates.

First, I would note that Public Works and Government Services Canada owns 347 buildings. The federal government inventory exceeds 20,000. There are 22 federal custodians; we are but one. We are significant, though, in the size of our holdings of office space mandated by the PWGS act. We hold 23% of the inventory. We have a very small number of buildings but a significant amount of the floor space.

The funding that has been established for this program is set up in a special-purpose allotment, which protects the funding to be only used for those buildings, and it gives us price protection. That, in large part, is the majority of the funds that are being asked for today. The $88 million we spoke about earlier is that price protection, to make sure we have the funds to properly maintain and operate that inventory. This is a unique fiscal structure that helps us ensure we don't rust out the inventory we hold.

The second part of my answer refers to another element of the supplementary estimates, which speaks to the economic action plan. Through the availability of that funding we were able to address previously identified requirements for our inventory, and in that respect it helps us prevent that backlog or that rust-out you were referring to.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Are there any estimates as to what the infrastructure deficit might be within the department?

[John McBain]

Well, we have an identified requirement now—a continuing requirement—of $1.4 billion over our forecasted assessments. We address that on a year-by-year basis with the appropriations we receive from Parliament.

These are requirements we've identified through long-term investigations and continual assessments, and it's something you would do as a prudent steward.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Right.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Warkentin, one minute.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you.

The whole issue of information technology, and upgrading and modernizing that equipment, has been something this committee has talked about at length, and in the past as well. I see that $5.1 million has been allocated for that in this supplementary estimates (B).

I'm wondering if you could tell me where we are in terms of modernizing and moving forward on some of this, and what this $5.1 million will purchase.

[Alex Lakroni]

The $5.1 million is to implement urgent data centre upgrades, things like air conditioning, new emergency power units, electrical panels. This is basically to sustain the data centre operations and allow PWGSC to continue supporting the delivery of mission-critical programs for colleague departments. There are 48 departments that depend on the data centre, with major programs such as the Receiver General and the income security program. These upgrades are to implement remedies and improve the conditions and reliability of high-risk data centres in order to avoid additional maintenance and broken equipment.

I think I talked about the AG report from the spring 2010, which highlighted the risks related to aging technology and the need to invest to mitigate those risks.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Lakroni. Thank you, Mr. Warkentin.

Mr. Martin, for eight minutes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

I don't have any particular comments to make on the Treasury Board Secretariat's report today, other than to observe that you've clearly been sent here with directions not to answer any questions outside of the very narrow scope of this document. I don't really think it's up to a witness to say which questions they will or will not answer.

That's just an observation. In the future, perhaps the secretariat should send somebody here who is able to answer the questions put to them.

I'd like to spend what little time I have on the Public Works report.

Mr. McBain, I know that you supervise or manage or direct.... Is it seven million square feet of floor space to house Public Works?

[John McBain]

Seven million square metres.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Square metres. That's a staggering amount.

I think I've asked you these questions in previous estimates, but I'm still interested in and frustrated by the fact that we're not taking radical measures to reduce our operating costs in terms of energy use. I'm speaking specifically of the federal buildings initiative.

Our research shows we could harvest units of energy and reduce our operating costs out of the existing system by demand-side measures, by comprehensive energy retrofits of all this space you use, not only to reduce your operating costs but to serve as an example to the private sector of what can be done if we develop that expertise.

Can you give us any update on the efforts you've made? First of all, what is roughly the amount you spend per year on energy—heating, cooling, lighting, water, etc.—and what active steps have you taken to reduce those costs?

[John McBain]

I don't have the specifics on those numbers. We can provide them to the committee. With respect to the consumption, it would be through our crown-owned properties, through our lease payments, through a variety of places. But we can gather the numbers.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Under the federal building initiative, you should have that—

[John McBain]

Yes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

—collected in one place already, is that correct?

[John McBain]

With respect to our initiatives, we have some pilots that have been announced by the department. They will look at smart building technologies in order to make better use of the systems. They will look at retrofitting and installing new capacities. For example, rather than having to light the entire floor because one person is there past six o'clock, the lights would be directly linked to where that person works as she enters and leaves her site. The same technology could be applied to the heating and ventilation.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's good.

[John McBain]

We are also using community heating and cooling capacities. There's a large plant infrastructure in the national capital, and we are examining options on the renovation of that capacity to drive—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Look, I've been asking these questions since 1997, and I keep getting the same answers. I keep hearing that they're starting some pilot projects to pick the low-hanging fruit, to change the lightbulbs, and so on. I'm talking about comprehensive building envelope renovations. We know there are 40% efficiencies. The largest source of energy in Canada is the wasted energy that goes up smokestacks unnecessarily. We think the federal government should be leading the way, showing the rest of the country how to save energy. I think we could be saving over a billion dollars a year. In the 22,000 federal government buildings, we think the energy cost is $2 billion to $3 billion a year. A 40% saving could save us a billion dollars. It's frustrating to me. You're reducing greenhouse gas emissions, you're creating jobs through energy retrofit, you're reducing your operating costs by 40%. I don't know why the government isn't jumping on this as something to be really proud of. The federal building initiative does only about 100 buildings a year. Even then, they only get the low-hanging fruit. At this rate, it would take us 100 years to energy-retrofit the 22,000 buildings in the federal government's domain.

[John McBain]

I can speak for our inventory. We are driving hard to reduce our costs and find efficiencies. We are working with our colleagues at NRCan, which is the centre for the federal buildings initiative. In fact, one of our pilots is situated in their buildings. It is designed to drive more efficient use and better operability of systems. Our recent building in Prince Edward Island, the Jean Canfield Building, takes advantage of a community centre and has virtually no carbon emissions, because it uses the community centre's heating and cooling supply.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's excellent.

[John McBain]

As we drive the renewal of our inventory, we are targeting those specific initiatives.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

One of the frustrations we have is that often, when we do a comprehensive energy retrofit, we sell the building. Suddenly the building is commercially desirable. This happened with the Harry Hays Building in Calgary. We spent hundreds of millions to retrofit it in the most state-of-the-art environmental retrofits, only to put it on the market and sell it.

We're not satisfied. I'm going to continue to raise this every year that you come in asking for supplementary increases to the estimates. I don't think you've harvested what you can out of the existing system. It's tentative, it's timid, it's always a little pilot project. We should announce 5,000 buildings a year. Imagine the expertise we could develop. We could be global leaders in energy retrofit if we took it seriously and used our own federally owned buildings as an example to the world. I'm not critical of you, but I'm frustrated that we haven't gone further.

Do I have time left?