Government Operations Committee on April 18th, 2013

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll come to order, please.

Welcome to the 81st meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, as we come to a conclusion of what's been a very interesting study on the energy efficiency of our government buildings and structures and public works.

We began this comprehensive study by inviting expert witnesses from the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Works to set the stage for us as to the state of the nation, as it were, in this regard.

We've spoken to a lot of people from across the country and nationally and even internationally in this regard, so we thought it would be logical to invite the same witnesses back as a conclusion, a wrap-up, as it were. We may want to put questions to them based on the information we've gleaned in the course of our study.

We welcome back from the Department of Natural Resources, Mr. Geoff Munro and Carol Buckley; from the Department of Public Works, our old friend John McBain, who may be setting a record for the number of appearances before our committee; and Robert Laframboise, the director general of the Office of Greening Government Operations.

I understand you've talked about the order in which you will proceed, and we'll begin then with the opening remarks of John McBain.

[John McBain, Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, members of the committee. As the chair introduced me, I'm John McBain, assistant deputy minister for the real property branch at the Department of Public Works and Government Services. With me this morning is Robert Laframboise, the director general of PWGSC's Office of Greening Government Operations.

I am pleased to follow-up on our October 2012 appearance, in particular from my perspective on the role of PWGSC enhancing the energy efficiency of the buildings owned or operated as part of our portfolio.

In our mandate to house the office requirements of the Government of Canada, PWGSC constantly assesses its real property portfolio to meet this mandate and to maximize the use of taxpayer resources. As we assess performance and short, medium, and long-term planning needs, we are also able to identify opportunities for energy savings and the implementation of cost-efficiency measures. PWGSC utilizes industry recognized environmental benchmarking tools to assess the performance of our portfolio.

The typical PWGSC-owned building is, on average, now 50 years old. As we add new buildings to our portfolio or undertake major retrofits, we implement sustainable building practices because we know that these bring operational and productivity dividends. As I mentioned, we are using industry recognized tools. We have set Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—commonly known as LEED gold—accreditation as the target for all new construction built-to-lease as well as lease-to-own office building projects. We have set LEED silver or three Green Globes targets for our non-office buildings, acquisitions, and major renovations. We use the Building Owners and Managers Association's BOMA BESt operational standard for existing crown-owned buildings and new or renewed lease assessments.

I think it is clear from those points, I should note, that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to achieve increased energy efficiency in our building assets. As we look at owned versus leased delivery, and short-term versus long-term needs, tenant requirements, and our overall portfolio strategies—these involve intention or disposal as well—all of these impact our decision-making process.

Mr. Chair, you've heard previous witnesses speak to the typical energy efficiency of Canadian office buildings. We are pleased that these witnesses have provided information that indicates PWGSC is a leader in real property management. In my view, the indications are clear.

The average office building in Canada uses approximately 320 equivalent kilowatt hours per square metre, versus the PWGSC office building, which only uses 285 such hours per square metre. I would also note that 77% of the PWGSC building portfolio area is below the average of Canadian energy intensity. PWGSC's LEED gold buildings use as little as 149 equivalent kilowatt hours square metre, well below the average of other LEED-certified buildings in Canada.

PWGSC is committed to build upon this success. As you may recall, Mr. Chair, our department has set its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to 17% below our 2005 levels to achieve that target by 2020. To achieve this objective, PWGSC is continuing to adopt new technologies, such as reforming its building management and tenant engagements.

While energy efficiency projects in the past were considered special initiatives or unique undertakings, they are now very much part of our standard operating mode, embedded with all other projects into our building management process priority ranking approach.

We have also partnered with many federal departments and agencies to share best practices and successes. We have active memoranda of understanding with other government departments, including Natural Resources Canada and the National Research Council.

We are leveraging the expertise of private sector service providers, for example, through our alternate forms of delivery service contracts and our work with the Canada Green Building Council and the Building Owners and Managers Association.

In addition to the work the department continues to pursue in our projects, repairs, and building modifications, we continue to develop our approach as part of our federal sustainability development strategy: planning a detailed approach to our reduction targets, documenting assessment tools used for both project delivery and building management, and implementing guides for staff use.

We recognize that as we look towards 2020 there will be further opportunities to address energy reduction and sustainability targets that are not presently available. In this regard, in the past PWGSC has been an early adopter of new approaches. I would mention our early take-up of the federal buildings initiative, LEED target-setting, adoption of BOMA BESt assessments, and federal buildings leadership—for example, our construction of the Jean Canfield Building in Charlottetown, which is the first LEED gold certified building in Atlantic Canada.

These examples highlight the strength of PWGSC's approach in real property management. By leveraging the knowledge and resources of our broad spectrum of partners and service providers, the department intends to remain at the forefront in addressing future energy challenges, and we will be in a position to provide leadership for other departments through our actions and the way we manage real estate.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide these remarks, Mr. Chair.

I will now pass the floor to my colleague, Robert Laframboise.

[Robert Laframboise, Director General, Office of Greening Government Operations, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you, John.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I'm Robert Laframboise, director general of the Office of Greening Government Operations within Public Works and Government Services Canada.

I would like to thank you for inviting us here today. I am pleased to appear before you to discuss PWGSC's role in supporting government departments to implement enhanced energy efficiency for federally owned or operated buildings.

On October 7, 2012, Ms. Caroline Weber, ADM for corporate services within PWGSC, appeared before you to discuss our role under the federal sustainable development strategy's theme four, which is greening of government operations.

As you may recall, the FSDS applies to 27 departments and agencies, 15 of which are custodial and subject to targets focusing on improving the environmental performance of their real property holdings.

Since our department's last appearance on this subject, the progress report on the first cycle of the FSDS, which is FSDS 2010, was released, in mid-February of 2013. Additionally, the graph of the second cycle of the FSDS, which is FSDS 2013—the program is on a three-year cycle—has been released for public consultation. Both of these documents are available online and will be of interest to the committee members here today.

The FSDS progress report shows that custodial departments have collectively committed to assess the environmental performance of 1,908 existing crown-owned buildings. This number covers approximately 80% of fully occupied buildings greater than 1,000 square metres.

While departments can choose any industry-recognized assessment tool, most have selected BOMA BESt, as mentioned by my colleague John.

The FSDS progress report also highlights that, based on departmental reports on plans and priorities for 2012-13, the government has committed to achieve a 12% decrease in greenhouse gas emission levels, relative to the base year 2005-06, by fiscal 2021. This projected gap of 5% relative to the 17% target highlights the need for additional efforts to be made.

However, more recent information from departments shows greater progress than expected. In the first year of implementation, energy consumption fell by 4.2% compared with the base year level of 2005-06. This resulted in a 3.9% decrease in total GHG emissions from real property holdings relative to the planned reductions of less than 3%. The draft of the FSDS 2013 has been updated to better support the implementation of additional energy efficiency measures.

Some of the proposed changes from the previous FSDS 2010 include benchmarking, use of such sustainable real property performance indicators as energy use intensity, building operator training, builder automation systems, and commissioning practices.

In conclusion, Public Works supports departments in achieving the FSDS targets, both by drawing on its real property expertise and by leveraging initiatives of partners such as Natural Resources Canada. We will continue to collaborate with our colleagues across government in the development and implementation of each successive cycle of the FSDS to reduce our environmental footprint.

Again, I thank the committee for the opportunity to attend today. I will respond to your questions; however, I will ask Geoff to take the lead.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

I wish you'd mentioned that Mr. Geoff Munro was with us from the Department of Nature Resources. He is the chief scientist and assistant deputy minister for the innovation and energy technology sector.

Mr. Munro, do you plan to divide your time with Ms. Buckley or will it be one presentation?

[Geoff Munro, Chief Scientist and Assistant Deputy Minister, Innovation and Energy Technology Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

We'll use the single presentation. I'll do the intro part and then Carol will take over on the retrofit piece. I understand that's of specific interest to the committee.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, it is. That's really the purpose of our study, so that'll be great.

[Geoff Munro]

That was part of our design in doing this.

Thank you. I appreciate being here today. As introduced, Geoff Munro is my name and Carol Buckley is my colleague. Carol is the director general of our Office of Energy Efficiency. I thought I'd start very quickly with a couple of context statements, because they certainly drive the way we work. I believe they will be of both interest and use to the committee.

From an NRCan perspective, we operate in three domains of energy efficiency. The first is our own home departmental responsibilities. We are a science-based and program-based department, so we utilize the knowledge that we gain on behalf of all Canadians in the energy efficiency agenda of our own buildings and run what we call a low-carbon program to implement that responsibility.

Second, we also work very closely with our colleagues in PWGSC. You've heard us speak when we were here together on the memorandum of understanding we have with PWGSC. We try to make our tools, knowledge, and programs available to all federal departments in carrying out their own responsibilities under the FSDS.

Finally, we also have a mandate to work in the commercial world. We try our best to make our tools and programs available to the commercial world, thereby improving energy efficiency in buildings across the country. So that's the broad context of how we work.

The International Energy Agency is a group that most modern western-style countries work with in improving energy efficiency. Half of the goal of being energy self-sufficient in North America is driven by the potential for energy efficiency. Clearly, energy efficiency is as important as going to renewables. We try to find energy efficient and environmentally efficient ways of dealing with fossil fuels.

What has energy efficiency brought us in the last 20 years? We have avoided some $32 billion in energy costs, which is 93 megatonnes in GHG emissions. Energy efficiency is no small item, and I certainly understand why it's of interest to the committee.

Let me try to describe NRCan's approach. We deal with things in three big categories: our own operations; the research, development, and demonstration activities we do; and the retrofit, which is mainly the federal buildings initiative. Carol will speak to this in just a moment.

A big part of our operations has to do with training. We undertake a number of training courses. We trained 430 federal employees just this year, and there's a long history of our training programs being utilized in the federal family.

We also work towards building optimization. We've developed software to monitor building performance. It is useful in analyzing proposed solutions and helps a building manager articulate where those building solutions might come from. We've had successes of anywhere from 5% to 20% of energy savings in those kinds of projects.

We have online benchmarking tools that allow comparisons with similar buildings. If you're building a lab, a hospital, or a conventional office building, not all of the parameters are going to be the same. It is important to be able to articulate how your proposed hospital or office building stacks up against the standard.

We also develop and use decision-making tools. RETScreen is probably the most well known project-analysis software we have, and it is used worldwide.

The second major area is our research, development, and demonstration agenda. This is probably the subject of another whole committee or committee review, so I'll just highlight it and be happy to answer any questions that you may have. But clearly, NRCan, in Canada certainly, is the largest R and D organization in terms of the whole question of building technologies from an energy efficiency perspective. You can see the list on the second major bullet: lighting; building design; heating and cooling; and various technologies and controls that are expected to decrease building energy consumption.

There are a number of innovations, for example, CO2 refrigeration systems that eliminate the need for synthetic refrigerants, and even just using the waste heat of pumps that pump the cooling material, and using that in other aspects of the same facility. You may know that CoolSolution was the technology that we used in the Vancouver Olympics on every ice sheet: curling, hockey, skating, the works. It was all based on this kind of technology, driving the energy efficiency up and the energy use down.

As to customized research agreements with federal departments, John talked about the collaboration with other departments. We too work closely with them. The two examples in front of you there are National Defence and Environment Canada.

With National Defence, our focus has been more on their mobile camp approach. This one translates right into saving soldiers' lives, because in that case we have a fairly large contingent for defending the movement of diesel fuel. If you can move less diesel fuel then you need less soldiers to protect it, and you literally save lives with an energy efficiency agenda.

With Environment Canada, we're helping them look at the retrofit of their own buildings, as they too head down the energy efficiency path under the auspices of the FSDS targets.

Let me at this point turn it over to the retrofit subject, and Carol will take over here. This is the subject of the federal buildings initiative, primarily. There are a couple of other aspects to it, but I'll turn it over to Carol at this point.

[Carol Buckley, Director General, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, Geoff.

We understand from the previous presentations you've had that you're interested in learning more about this program. We mentioned it in our previous appearance, but the rest of the deck focuses on this program and how it operates.

It's a federal government program aimed at federal government departments and operated out of my branch of NRCan. What we're trying to do is facilitate the use of energy performance contracting within the Government of Canada. This is a specialized type of contracting where the private sector not only designs and implements energy-saving upgrades in a building, but they also finance it. So this is important. If you're a federal government department and you have a capital budget that is totally used up in terms of the maintenance you have to do—you might have to fix roofs, or upgrade things for health and safety purposes—and you have no more capital budget left, but you would like to make an improvement in your buildings, that's where the federal buildings initiative, or the FBI, comes in.

You have heard about this from some of the practitioners, the energy service companies. It's a specialized type of private sector company that has the ability to both finance and implement energy-saving retrofits. I hope I'm not repeating what they said in terms of defining how the instrument works, but I'll just spend a minute on this slide to walk through the role of a department and the role of the program in an energy performance contract.

Our phone would ring in the program, as a department is interested in the FBI. Can it help them put in place a major building retrofit? We go over and have a look at their building stock and where they want to make their improvements and share with them our contracting tools, which I can discuss in a minute.

Not every building is a candidate for an FBI project. This makes more sense for larger buildings, say over 1,000 meters squared, which is about the size of a two-storey building on a city block, maybe a little bit smaller than that. Your skyscrapers, such as I believe we are in right now, would not be a candidate for an energy performance contract, but if you have a good size building or a number of them, then you'd be a candidate.

The department would write a request for proposal and put it out for bids in the marketplace. They can design a contract up to $25 million, which is our contracting ceiling established by Treasury Board. Bidders would visit the facility to assess the scope. They would go through the buildings and they would do a quick run-through in terms of an energy audit to see what kind of savings are there and then they'd prepare their bids. The bids would have a technical component in terms of what energy-saving measures they design for those buildings, what the savings would look like, and what the cost would look like. It would have a financing component, which really is how much it will cost you as a department to borrow the money from this company in order to do this work.

The department works with our program to evaluate the bids. They select a successful contractor, the retrofits are implemented, the energy savings start rolling in, and the department pays the contractor back through the energy savings. The instrument is structured so that the level of the energy savings becomes the level of repayment, so the department doesn't have to come up with additional cash to repay what is essentially a loan for the building improvements.

Moving on to the next slide, because this is a specific instrument, departments typically don't have familiarity with energy performance contracting unless they've done one before, so we created a set of model documents that are specific to this type of contract and are available for departments to use. We also do the front-end work in qualifying the companies in Canada who have the expertise, the knowledge, and the financial capacity to conduct one of these types of contracts. There are eight companies in Canada with access to $700 million in financing for energy performance contracts.

We have four staff who can hold hands with and otherwise facilitate departments in their quest for an improved building and we can also contract with private sector contractors who can help facilitate if our staff are too busy to help everybody. We meet five or six times a year with the 19 departments that have people who are charged with managing facilities to pursue topics of interest such as how to monitor and track energy use, just to raise the awareness and the skill level in the capacity in the government departments. We have an employee awareness program if a department wants to address energy savings through their own employees. We also have training that Geoff mentioned earlier that's open to federal public servants as well as the private sector.

The next slide, slide 9, I think you saw from one of the other presenters. This is our history, the history of our results: 80 projects since the early 1990s, cumulative savings now of $43 million a year; and we have accessed $300 million in private sector capital.

You may ask why there's a bit of a downturn after the year 2000 except for a bit of a blip in the mid 2000s. There really are sort of two stages, one of very heavy activity and significant savings, and one of a lower level of activity. I would like to take just a second to explain our own analysis of what's happened.

I think there are four reasons. In the early nineties, departments really addressed FBI aggressively. PWGSC and DND together were responsible for about half of the floor space in the stock and about 70% of the energy use. They very aggressively addressed their major savings opportunities and they did deep building retrofits addressing the heating, ventilating, cooling, lighting, motors—all the major systems. You can go back to a building and address it a second time if you've already done a deep retrofit, but it's very unlikely that in the space of 20 years there will be enough advances in technology to have another 20% savings. Some departments are going back a second time. Environment Canada, for example, is going back to the same building a second time some 15 years later, but you probably won't get savings that are as deep.

The first reason is that out of the gate a lot of the really good opportunities were exhausted. The second reason is that for a period of time in the early 2000s and then again in the early part of this decade there were capital programs available to federal government departments, including one for leading-edge energy investments and one for infrastructure renewal. It takes property management people to manage the implementation of those projects, and there is a limited set of resources. So that probably reduced the person power available to implement projects.

The next reason is that some departments—Parks Canada and RCMP would be good examples—don't have a lot of very large buildings. They have a very large number of very small buildings and those are not the most amenable to an energy performance contract where in order to recoup the investment and payback the financing cost you really need a larger investment with a larger return.

If we look at buildings over about 1,000 square metres, which I mentioned earlier was about the threshold for a good energy performance contract, we've actually covered about 50% of the stock instead of one-third or 36%.

The final reason is that our slide shows only the activity in energy savings in building retrofits from energy performance contracts. There's a lot of activity out there that isn't being captured by our program, because it's not being done through our program. It's being captured in the statistics that Robert mentioned in terms of the actual energy savings.

For example, Corrections Canada is going out with a national contract to seek auditing across a large portion of their stock. I don't know if at the end of the day they'll end up doing an energy performance contract, or whether they'll choose some other means to get at those energy savings.

Slide 11. We are making efforts to increase the use of FBI. We're not going to be very complacent and say there are all those reasons, and it was very heavy in the early nineties, and it hasn't been as heavy since then. We really are trying to increase the use of the program notwithstanding those four reasons I've just provided to you.

So it helped us a lot when the Office of Greening Government Operations said that the FBI was the best practice. That kind of raised the awareness amongst the federal family of our services. We have been carrying the FBI message to places where government executives go to hear about real property issues. We did a needs analysis with our stakeholder group to find out how we could improve the program, and we get together with key property managers to talk about best practices and energy issues to keep FBI top of mind.

Currently we're working with 11 departments on five major building retrofits that we hope will come to fruition and show up in our chart in future years, and we're working on seven other projects that are not major building retrofits but are energy-saving projects of some sort.

Slide 12 I won't deliver. It's there for you to read. It's on energy savings from some of the higher profile or more interesting of the 80 projects. Our Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C., is a very obvious one.

Thank you very much for your attention. We'd all be happy to take any of your questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you very much, Ms. Buckley. That was very interesting and very helpful. I know there are a lot of questions, so we'll jump right to them.

Linda Duncan with the New Democratic Party.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Indeed, I have lots of questions, and I won't possibly get them all in.

Thanks for coming back. We thought it would be useful after the testimony we received, which was very helpful. I'm taking the opportunity to go back to the progress reports on the sustainable development strategy that Mr. McBain mentioned. In the report on 2010 to 2013, page 15 actually requires that the government link sustainable development planning with government's core expenditure planning. I have found it odd all along that the sustainable development strategy for Public Works is based on the reduction of carbon.

Now, we know that there is not unanimity among elected officials about the value of Canada investing in reducing its carbon. But I think you'll find unanimity—and it makes sense for the federal government—to reduce the spending of taxpayers' dollars. So I'm a little puzzled that given that the sustainable development strategy requires the departments to be basing their strategy on reducing core spending, why is it still in the direction of tying it to reduction of carbon?

I noticed, Mr. McBain, that you reported—and I haven't seen the most recent report—that in addition to reducing carbon, Public Works had reduced its energy use by 4%, whereas the last report said there was reduced carbon but higher energy use. So it looks as though there must be some good things happening. I'm wondering if you could speak to that.

I noticed in the sustainable development strategy the mandate for Public Works seems to be limited to guidance, consulting, and monitoring for other government departments. I'm wondering if in that role you have been advising government that as one of the measures to reduce spending and bring down the deficit they could be investing more in energy efficiency.

[John McBain]

Thank you for the question. It's a robust one, to say the least. I will turn to Robert as well in our Office of Greening Government Operations for part of the answer.

From the real property branch perspective, the targets that are set in terms of the GHG reductions are linked very strongly to energy savings. Somewhere between 80% and 90% of the reduction will be achieved through energy reductions. Having set the target for 2020, that's the target that we're working toward. I can tell you that in terms of energy savings, from 2001 to 2010 we have reduced our energy consumption by 19%. Our GHG reduction target—and there are so many of these targets that they do get confusing—runs from 2005 to 2020. So in pursuing that reduction, we're also achieving reductions in our energy consumption. It's not a stated target for reduction, but it is achieved as a product of pursuing the GHG reduction.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I get that, but what I've appreciated is the many witnesses who have come in who've actually been contracted by the Government of Canada to do retrofits in their buildings. Also, in the NRCan testimony, they talk a lot about the actual savings over time from having expended money, invested in energy retrofits. I'm simply raising that point, suggesting that it may be good to start talking more about the energy savings to taxpayers, instead of only focusing on the carbon reductions.

I wonder if I could go to NRCan, because my time is tight, and then I'll go back to both of you after.

I notice in your testimony that you are talking a lot about these performance contracts. We heard a lot of different testimony about that. Only on Tuesday we had two witnesses say they don't necessarily always recommend a performance contract because it can add between 20% to 40% of the cost of doing the retrofit. What some of our witnesses recommended instead was the use of in-house strategic plans using external energy efficiency experts, thereby having a long-term plan. In other words, they recommended moving away from the one-off, performance-based contracts, and instead now looking at the measures that could be done, and costing those over time.

I wonder if you could speak to that. Why does NRCan seem to be singularly focused on these expensive performance contracts?

[Carol Buckley]

Thank you. I'm happy to answer that question.

Natural Resources Canada promotes long-term energy management planning as the very first step, and through the federal buildings initiative we certainly share all of our tools and services that support planning. When I put up the slide that showed our tools, there was one on training, which includes training and materials and examples of long-term management plans. So we provide all of those services to departments and say, “As part of doing a good job in managing your real property, you need to be doing long-term planning, and here are some tools to help you do that”. We're adding to those tools, providing them to the whole economy and making those available to government departments as well.

When a department says it's all well and good, that it should put in place a long-term energy management plan but it has no capital to make retrofits, we say, “Well, we have a tool for that”. However, I wouldn't want to leave the impression with you that it's the only thing we advocate for in energy efficiency in the federal government. We have a whole range of tools that we advocate. For the situation where a department has no capital budget, we have a tool to address that.

We promote energy savings through a wide variety of different efforts for all energy users in Canada, including our federal buildings clients.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You're out of time, Linda, I'm afraid.

Next, for the Conservatives, Peter Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our officials for being here today and for returning.

I think it's very helpful that you have come back at this particular stage of our study, as we've digested a lot of information over the past weeks and months and are turning toward looking at a draft report and contemplating recommendations as well. So I appreciate your coming back today.

Congratulations, as well, on your success thus far in both creating more energy efficient federal government buildings and helping the federal government meet its important greenhouse gas emission targets by 2020.

I'll start with a fairly broad question, but I think it's one that will help me, and perhaps our report as well.

I want to get a sense of where PWGSC's mandate begins and ends, where NRCan's mandate begins and ends and, ultimately, what federal government departments or agencies are not covered at all and are perhaps missed by the net that each of you cast.

[John McBain]

Thank you. It's an excellent question, and 35 years later I'm still asking myself that question sometimes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Take your time.

[John McBain]

From the PWGSC perspective we are, first and foremost, a common service provider. The act mandates the minister to provide certain functions, some of which are mandatory. For example, the provision of office space is mandated to the Minister of PWGSC, so if a federal government department needs office space, they are required to come to us. We are centrally funded to provide that as a common service.

There are other things we do through the act that are optional; indeed, departments may or may not come to us. In that capacity, we drive our portfolio—which is four-square in my function—to be as efficient as possible to maximize the use of taxpayer resources and save money wherever possible. At the same time, as Robert embodies, the Office of Greening Government Operations is there in a leadership function to assist other departments in achieving targets. That function is not mandatory but it is a well-used service, because they have their own objectives and targets as well.

Before I turn to Geoff, I would say that the policy function for the federal government rests with Treasury Board, so if you want to find an overriding Treasury policy that says you shall do it this way or that way, it would reside with that authority.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I was afraid that you were going to say that.

[Geoff Munro]

Let me try to complement what John said. From an NRCan perspective, when it comes down to the accountability associated with actual energy efficiency in buildings, we are really only accountable for our own.

We have 18 major labs across the country, a number of different ownership and occupancy arrangements, and we work within that milieu to drive the energy efficiency agenda.

We use some of our labs as living labs. We took over control of one of our laboratory facilities in Quebec, by example, and put it in the hands of the experts in energy efficiency—and I mean that in a scientific and engineering context—and drove the overall cost of energy down in excess of 45% and kept it at that lower level.

So in terms of our accountability from the energy efficiency implementation responsibility, that's where it begins and ends, as we are the occupants or owners of the buildings.

It's on the program and knowledge side where the products and services we generate are in the public domain. As I said in my introductory remarks, we function on our own for our own accountability for our own buildings. We function in collaboration with our colleagues at PWGSC in terms of making those services, knowledge tools, and programs available for federal departments who, like us, are accountable for their own. It's just that we have the expertise internally.

Then, primarily through Carol's shop, the Office of Energy Efficiency, but through other ways as well, we work with the commercial sector to enhance energy efficiency in buildings writ large.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You have one minute, Peter.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I'll come back then to the core of my question. Are there any federal government agencies or departments missing from your respective mandates that we could perhaps consider or look at?

[Robert Laframboise]

Under the Federal Sustainable Development Act, the departments that are bound by that act to report back under the strategy are the 27 departments under schedule 1. Those are the ones that are bound and need to report back through their departmental performance reports and provide their planning through their RPP. Those are the 27 departments, and that list is identified in the FSDS 2010. They are the same departments for the new cycle that will come in for 2013.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I have more questions, but I'll come back afterwards.