Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2018

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I appreciate that.

To our architect friends, thank you for joining us.

I read briefly online some of your past experience, and certainly your team seems exceptionally well versed. Would you have any specific examples of similar projects that members of your team may have undertaken in the past that might be on a similar scale to this project?

[Larry Malcic, Lead Representative, Centrus Architects]

Yes, we have. Over the years we've been involved in the restoration and renewal of a number of major government projects. In the U.K., for instance, we worked on the Ministry of Defence main building, which is a building that is grade I listed, the British equivalent listing to Centre Block. That was over a million square feet of complete renovation and renewal, rehabilitation.

We have been involved, in the past, in many other buildings in Whitehall, particularly the complete rehabilitation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is about a million and a half square feet, and we are currently leading the rehabilitation of Buckingham Palace.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you for that.

It was mentioned that the original architectural plans from Mr. Pearson may not have been entirely followed when this building was constructed, as I think many projects in that era may not have been, which always begs the question whether there are going to be known unknowns and unknown knowns that we encounter on this project.

From your past experience, what would be the greatest risk with this project in terms of some of those unknowns that may creep up during this project? Would you hazard a guess?

[Larry Malcic]

I would say that, in virtually any building, whether an old building or a new building, there is always some variance between the set of drawings and the building as it's built. I think the risks here are less, in the sense that the building is approximately 100 years old, so there are not the variations in construction quality and technique that you would find in a building built over 300 or 400 years.

However, I think we are doing a very thorough investigation right now, which includes investigations of all sorts of aspects of the building because, particularly in this case, it was an innovative building structure at the time to employ a steel frame and some masonry as well. It's really that interface we're going to be investigating carefully, especially because to create the seismic upgrade will involve very carefully studying how those joints and connections are made.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you very much. I may circle back in a future round. I appreciate that.

I do have one final question for Public Works and Government Services.

At one time, Treasury Board had a project risk management assessment—PCRA. This was required for all major projects undertaken by government departments. I believe each department also had to self-assess its capability. I have two points. Did Public Works and Government Services undertake an internal assessment in terms of what their capacity is to manage such a project, and second and correlated to that, was a PCRA done on this particular project? What was the rating for that assessment and are you confident that Public Works has the capacity to undertake the project?

[Rob Wright]

Yes, there was the type of assessment that you referenced made on the Centre Block. It's essentially a four-point scale. Centre Block was rated as a three on that assessment. It's within the department's assessment of its ability to manage projects of that size.

That's a departmental assessment, and within the parliamentary precinct branch the approach on the Centre Block also rests on 10-plus years of restoring and modernizing the buildings within the precinct. As I've mentioned, the West Block, the Government Conference Centre, the Wellington Building, Sir John A. Macdonald and the Library of Parliament would be some of those examples. There's a slew of others, but those are some examples of facilities that would present a variety of the challenges that we will see in the Centre Block. I would say that we are certainly much better positioned taking on this project than if we hadn't cut our teeth and built capacity within industry as well over the past 10 years. There's both been internal capacity and a significant amount of industry capacity that has been built over the past decade-plus of experience.

I would say that we are full and ready for this project.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Ms. Lapointe, you have the floor.

[Linda Lapointe, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Lib.]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I must say that you have surprised me a bit today. As the chair said, when you renovate or build a house, you know in advance where you are going; the architectural plans have been drawn up and you know your needs.

Correct me if I am mistaken but that is not what I'm hearing. It's as though the consultations had not been completed and the planning either.

That surprises me somewhat, all the more so since according to what I think I understood parliamentarians were not consulted. I expect that all of you listen to the program Découverte on CBC-Radio-Canada. A month ago, one of its episodes was all about the renovation of Parliament. They said that everything had been planned and that all of the inventory had been done. However, you are now telling us that we are going to see some surprises when we close Parliament. I don't understand.

Can you explain that, Mr. Wright?

[Rob Wright]

Thank you for your question.

As I said, this part of the project has two phases, that is to say the needs of the building and the state the building is currently in.

It is crucial that the walls and ceilings be removed so that we can determine the state of the building. That is impossible to do until it is empty. That was the case also when the work began on the West Block and the Government Conference Centre.

So, we will need to remove the walls and ceilings so that we can determine the current state of that building.

[Linda Lapointe]

I am still surprised, because in the Découverte program they seemed to say that the work had started a very long time ago and that you knew what you would be doing.

So, let me come back to this. When I renovate my house or build a new one, all of my plans are ready before the work begins.

If I understand correctly, this building is going to be shut down before the needs have been established. Do you already know what the senators' and parliamentarians' needs are? Do you know how you are going to divide all of that up?

[Rob Wright]

Thank you for your question.

The state of this building is not exactly like that of a new building, like a house or some other structure. The conditions here are completely different. We need to remove the walls and ceilings, and so on, in order to understand the situation and reduce the risks. That is very important in this type of project.

[Linda Lapointe]

I am talking about the needs of parliamentarians, when they will come back to the building.

[Rob Wright]

This applies to the House of Commons.

[Linda Lapointe]

Did you consult people about the planning?

[Susan Kulba]

No, we have just begun to study parliamentarians' needs. It happens quite frequently with a project of this scope that this is done in parallel. It is also typical to begin by emptying the building and removing all of the infrastructure while doing research on the needs of parliamentarians and the functional needs.

We'll have a couple of years of design before we're actually at the point where we'll need to start construction in the interiors where those requirements are going to be set. There's a very typical delivery on a fast track. You'll see it in a large building. You'll often see the hole in the ground being dug and the parking garage being poured, and the rest of the building hasn't been designed. It's very common in the complexity of this kind of building where we need to assess the base building requirements. We need to understand what kind of structure there is, what kind of mechanical and electrical there is, all the while gathering the functional requirements, which will feed into the later part of construction.

We are at the beginning of the project with regard to the needs.

[Linda Lapointe]

You say that you are at the beginning, but I have heard that the planning was 50% complete and that it was 75% complete with regard to the Senate. Earlier, my colleagues were asking if the parliamentarians' needs are known.

We're trying to build a more family-friendly Parliament. What are you going to do to adapt things in that regard?

You said that the building has been in existence for 100 years.

What are you considering to make the building more family-friendly?

Mr. Wright or Ms. Kulba, I'm all ears.

[Susan Kulba]

Essentially, when we say we're at 50% functional program, that's really the base requirements. What we've done to establish that is that we looked at the existing standards that we fitted up in the buildings for members and some of the service groups, so that's like a baseline. We haven't really even done any design. We've just gathered the very minimal baseline requirements and now the consultation process will begin where we'll start to look at more detailed functional requirements. That's why we need to start engaging with you.

In terms of the family-friendly Parliament, we've heard that requirement, even in the existing building. As you know, we have a family room in Centre Block because of those requirements. We will certainly be looking at what kind of future family-friendly requirements will be needed, and we'll be looking to parliamentarians to feed into that functional requirement.

[Linda Lapointe]

Mr. Wright, do you have something to add?

[Rob Wright]

No.

[Linda Lapointe]

Okay.

I have a very down-to-earth question to ask. A concrete structure is being built beside the West Block.

What is it? No one has been able to tell me.

[Susan Kulba]

As part of the West Block there is no direct loading dock, so the temporary loading dock is being built there in the meantime.

[Linda Lapointe]

Is it next to the statue of Queen Victoria?

[Susan Kulba]

Yes.

[Stéphan Aubé]

It will be there during the reconstruction. So it will be temporary, but for several years. A strategy will be developed by the Parliamentary Precinct in order to better manage the delivery of construction materials to Parliament Hill.