Evidence of meeting #3 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Yes, but no, I'm talking now about the delivery of transparency in regard to that.
September 23rd, 2025 / 12:30 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Yes, I think this is why we highlighted in the report that not every government department has a financial incentive.
If you had a financial incentive to reduce your rent, you would most likely try to reduce your footprint if it's underutilized. It is up to the government to figure out the best way to get tenants to agree, whether that's consolidating into buildings or whether that's renovating some of the buildings so that they're more attractive for people to work in. It's whatever incentive they want.
I would personally encourage my deputy minister colleagues to think about how each of us can support the government's goal of reducing federal office space to help contribute to affordable housing.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Agreed, and the government has agreed with some of those recommendations.
I don't know. We can't predict the future. We can't predict future problems. How would you handle those situations that aren't being addressed, such as when they are resisting providing the information?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I think that Public Services and Procurement Canada needs to enforce compliance. Reducing office space by 50% by 2034 is a stated government objective, and it's up to PSPC to entice and enforce that compliance.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
This brings us to the last question, to recap this. Let's focus on some of the methodology that exists in some of the other OECD countries.
My colleague mentioned how Australia calculates the percentage of tenancies meeting the occupational density—the square metres, the long-term employee targets. What is the right target? What do you feel should be established by the Government of Canada?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I think that's a difficult question. As I answered before, I don't think it's one size fits all. The space you need in a laboratory will be different from the space you need in an office building.
I think it is about leveraging the expertise the public service has and understanding how their space is used now, and then looking to best practices in other countries, which is why we highlighted Australia in our report as well. We highlighted the kind of information that they put out there about office space. I believe it would incentivize departments to want to reduce their office space if the federal government had that kind of information in the public domain.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Of course, the incentive is there to provide greater operational efficiencies. As you say, if it's not one size fits all, the respective average, I think, is what they're using. How are they determining the differences in those spaces?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I'm not exactly sure how they're going about it, but I would tell you that the motivation should be that a building, whether it is fully occupied or partially occupied, comes with costs. You need to maintain buildings and you need to operate buildings, and in many of the municipalities, the federal government has to make payments in lieu of taxes, because the government doesn't pay municipal taxes. All of that comes with a cost, and that's why we highlighted the need of.... There are some cost savings. The government estimated the cost at $3.9 billion over 10 years. That could be repurposed.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's a great point, and that's part of what we need to do as we go forward.
Thank you so much, all of you, for being here today and for your reports.
That's it, Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
That's why we brought you back today.
Before all of you pack up and go, I have a couple of quick questions, colleagues, if you don't mind.
Did you look at the NCC office space at all as part of this study? Have you looked at whether the government is still purchasing office space at the same time that they're trying to reduce their footprint?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I can't tell you for sure whether the NCC was in here. We wouldn't have targeted them. We are doing, I believe, a special examination on the National Capital Commission right now, but it won't look specifically at office space.
Are they acquiring more office space? Over the term of our audit, I don't think that happened.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Are the government and PSPC together still adding office space?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I actually do not have an answer for that. We didn't look at that. We were focusing in on the plan to reduce it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
It's fair to say, though, that they shouldn't be, when the government plan is to go the other way.
Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
The short answer to that question is that it might be more complex.
If certain buildings might not be sustainable, for whatever reasons—maybe the repairs are going to cost more—it might make sense to acquire a different building. Not every building is going to be fit for purpose for a particular organization. I would say that—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I would assume, though, that if the government is trying to get rid of 50% of their buildings, they would move over to a government building rather than buy a new building.
Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
For sure, when those buildings will be fit for purpose, but it won't be a one-size-fits-all.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
On the F-35, the review date, the published date, has come and gone. There has been some talk about a dual air force and two different planes. Have you looked at or considered what the added cost would be?
If the government moves away from the F-35, as has been bandied about, and considering how much has been invested there and that the investments in Bagotville and Cold Lake are still going ahead to accommodate the F-35, have you considered it? I'm curious to know if you can give a quick idea about some of the costs that might be involved if that happened.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
It's difficult to determine the costs should a change in direction happen when we don't even know if a change in direction has happened. I guess what I would offer up is that no—
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Again, the review date has come and gone, but we're still going ahead with investing in some of these buildings.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I would say that no matter what aircraft the Canadian Armed Forces chooses, they will need trained pilots and they will need upgraded facilities to house them. The technology of the new aircraft is different from the CF-18 technology. No matter what, that training will be needed and that investment will be needed.