Government Operations Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll show it to you afterwards.

[John McBain]

Okay.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's listing only four items, so there may be some other expenses going in there then.

In Edmonton, we have the Telus Science Centre, which you mentioned. It's a fabulous area of Vancouver.

[John McBain]

That's not us.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

No, I realize that, and I realize you're not in Edmonton.

I have to ask this. Why do we as Canadians own the one in Montreal but we're not in that business elsewhere across the country?

[John McBain]

In terms of the history of the science centre, I think you'd need to go back to the creation of it, which dates back to 2000, as I recall. It was a decision of the government to create the science centre and invest in it. It's part of the development of the Old Port.

Canada Lands was asked to assume the responsibility for the Old Port in 2012.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Just looking at real estate sales—and again you probably don't have this—budget 2016 shows $119 million in sales. Real estate cost of sales, we list as $86 million, which is 70%. What's going into the cost of the real estate sales that's so high? Are you looking at the appraised land value?

[Robert Howald]

Backing up to understand our real estate role, we acquire it at market value, so there's a land cost. We act as the master land developer. We take the land through the municipal planning approval process, the consultation. There is significant soft cost involved with that: planners, engineers, facilitators. Then we typically do that hard servicing—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are we still going ahead and acquiring new land?

[Robert Howald]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I have to ask the government the purpose of our purchasing new land to transfer. If we've got surplus land, I understand transferring it to a municipality to develop low-income housing, but when you talk about purchasing and developing, I don't understand—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. McCauley, your time is up. We'll have 15 seconds for a response.

[John McBain]

We purchase surplus land from the government; we don't purchase new land.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's perfect.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We'll go to Mr. Ayoub for five minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is pretty interesting. Similar questions have already been asked about figures. You don't have the tables, but it would help us if you provided some information on that later.

I would like to talk about the Old Port of Montreal. You say that you are in “public consultations”. You are trying to gather information concerning the plan for the future of the Old Port of Montreal and the Montreal Science Centre. I was going to say the palace of science, but it's almost the same thing. I visited the website.

What is your marketing plan to ensure that you obtain responses? What role do municipalities or the City of Montreal play in your plan? How is everything coming along?

[Basil Cavis]

Thank you very much for the question.

The public consultation and master planning for the Old Port is a three-phase process that we're doing. We're currently starting the second phase. In January of this year, we did a visioning exercise with the population and had 260 people provide us with their opinion. Our objective is to have a master plan by the spring of 2017 to be able to revitalize the Old Port and bring new activities to the site.

The way we're working with the city and other stakeholders is that we have an advisory committee with 13 different prominent Montrealers, including the city of Montreal, which has Richard Bergeron, a member of the executive committee.

The public consultation and master planning for the Old Port of Montreal also includes the Silo no. 5 site, the former grain elevators that have been abandoned for about 30 years.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I saw in the consultation that you were talking about the spring of 2017. That will mark Canada's 150th anniversary and Montreal's 375th anniversary. There will definitely be no changes from now until those celebrations.

[Basil Cavis]

Our objective is to unveil a master plan in 2017. We have a number of projects and activities. We are working on preparing the Old Port site for 2017, including for a New Year's party on January 1 to kick off 2017. Other events will also take place at that site in 2017.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Chair, how many more minutes or seconds do I have?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have about a minute and a half.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I would like to come back to the Old Port of Montreal.

You may not have the tables in front of you, but I have some figures that come from your corporate plan summary. In the row “Government funding/Financial support from CLC”, there is a pivotal year or a year that is very different between 2014 and 2017. The amounts are about the same in 2014 and in 2017—$11.5 million and $10.6 million—but the amounts vary in between those years from $13.1 million to $16.9 million. What is the explanation behind those large variations?

[Basil Cavis]

The events and activities we hold every two years are a good explanation for those variations. The Cirque du Soleil is the best example. Normally, it uses the site every two years. So the money comes from the rent it pays and all the ancillary revenues such as parking. That causes fluctuations from one year to another.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

In other words, it's not government funding that is fluctuating.

[Basil Cavis]

We stopped receiving government funding in 2013.