Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wasn't going to intervene, Madam Chahwan, but at the risk of being a bit of a buzzkill, with all due respect, I really feel I have to challenge both the tone and the content of some of your remarks.
I've watched this project balloon and swell and explode in proportion and expense. I'm a carpenter by trade. I understand the difference between renovations and restorations, but there's almost a rule of thumb that everything on Parliament Hill costs ten times as much and takes ten times as long. Speaking on behalf of taxpayers and people in the industry, frankly, it's extremely frustrating.
I want to point out the inherent contradiction in some of your remarks. First of all, you said that you're “on time and on budget”, in kind of a cheerleading tone. Then in the same sentence almost you said that the cost estimates, of course, “evolve over time”. In other words, the budget is whatever it costs and the timeframe is however long it takes. Of course you're on time and on budget with this ever-moving scale. It takes longer and costs more every year that ticks by. It was under construction when I got here in 1997, and it was under construction when Diane got here prior to that.
The other contradiction I have to point out in the time I have is this idea of pre-qualifying your contractors. How then do you explain having to run off this company with connections to the Hells Angels who couldn't comply with the basic requirement of the stonework? They had to be fired. Granted, you have PCL there now, the best construction company in North America if not the world, I would concede, but with regard to this pre-qualification idea, how did we wind up with organized crime on the job? In the place with the highest security in the land, you have these guys with biker connections.
The last thing I'll say, and maybe it's been my favourite bugaboo from day one, is how did we ever wind up with this extravagant opulence, this almost audacious impracticality of putting a glass roof on the House of Commons in this climate? How a cracked room full of chimpanzees ever decided that was a good idea is beyond me. This isn't the Winter Palace of imperial tsarist Russia; this is a temporary House of Commons. And it's a temporary move; it's not even permanent.
Can you confirm one thing for me? I understand that now they've designed a glass roof, they've learned that because of the sunshine, the TV cameras can't operate properly. Therefore, we now have to design a great big screen to cover up the glass. Wouldn't asphalt shingles have been more practical if you're going to have to cover up the glass roof anyway?
My specific question, I suppose—and I'm not even going to have time to touch on the asbestos abatement—is with regard to the cost factor associated with the glass roof. What is it? What was the additional expense to go to glass instead of conventional? Is it true that you now have to find some way to shield us from the glass roof or the televised documentation can't go on in the House of Commons?