Mr. Chair, I gave notice of a motion in the spring. It has been submitted in both official languages and is in order. It reads, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee immediately undertake a study into the government’s rejection of an expert-panel’s decision to locate the future Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus on federal land across the street from the existing Hospital; and that the Committee call the Ministers of Environment, Heritage, and Agriculture and Dr. Mark Kristmanson, CEO of the National Capital Commission (NCC), to discuss the matter.”
I'm here today to introduce this motion. I thank the chair for giving me the floor. As I said, the motion is in order as notice was given in June. I had intended to move it then. However, the schedule did not permit, so I am moving it today. Today is a particularly important day in the matter because the National Capital Commission is holding two meetings, one for so-called VIPs in the Ottawa area and another for the public at large, to discuss 12 locations it has identified for the possible location of the Ottawa Civic Hospital.
To give background to members of the committee, normally we wouldn't be talking about the location of any particular hospital in a federal Commons committee as health care is a provincial jurisdiction. This is a very unique circumstance, however, because the previous government had allocated approximately 50 acres of land on the federal experimental farm, which is immediately across the street from the existing hospital campus.
Upon taking office, the Minister of Environment, Catherine McKenna, slammed the brakes on this decision and asked the hospital to go back to the drawing board and find a different location. The hospital then came up with four possibilities for situating its new campus. The minister was still not satisfied, so she has asked the heritage minister to task the NCC, the National Capital Commission, with finding a location that is suitable.
The NCC has since identified 12 possible sites where this hospital could be located. Most of the sites—