Thank you.
Circulation and connections are fundamental to any building's functioning. Centre Block itself, because of the nature of its beaux arts plan, had a very clear plan of circulation. Once again, however, what we are planning and now designing are ways that we can extend the clarity and power of that circulation system.
It's one in which we need to bring together many different things. Here you begin to see the way in which we want to create the new front door for Parliament in the visitor welcome centre, and to use that then to provide a clear public entrance and public circulation.
We want to ensure that the circulation for parliamentarians and their staff is equally efficient and effective and, ideally, that it would be a circulation system that runs independently of the public circulation. We also have to consider, as part of circulation, the building's servicing. How do we bring goods in and distribute them throughout the building? How do we bring rubbish and garbage out of the building in a way that doesn't have an impact on any of the building users?
All of these things intertwine. We also have the additional layers, in terms of circulation, of bringing the building services into the plan, because those, too, have to be considered as part of the circulation system. The goal is for all of the buildings to become interconnected so they will work as one campus and a complex of buildings. In this way, you will have the benefit of all of them working together rather than simply independently.
At the moment, this is still very much in development, but you begin to see, here in the green, the way in which public circulation could be brought in through the visitor welcome centre. It could come in horizontally across the visitor welcome centre, and then vertically into what are currently the light wells or the courtyards of the building and be given direct access. The public then would have direct access into the galleries. The paths of visitors and members of the public would not necessarily cross those of parliamentarians and those doing parliamentary business. However, it does show that we're considering the courtyards as a fundamental part of the solution for a much better, more operational Centre Block. By glazing them and enclosing them, we are actually able to reduce the overall external footprint of the building and improve its sustainability by reducing its energy consumption. We could then provide a series of spaces where the new functions, including the circulation, could be introduced.
Finally, we've already touched on the visitor welcome centre and its relationship with this, but this shows diagrammatically the way we view it, which is as a great opportunity. It's the opportunity, I guess, of this century, to take Centre Block and expand it—in the green you see the expansion of the House of Commons—to provide committee rooms and other support facilities, which are very necessary to the operations of Parliament.
In red, you see on the east side the expansion for the Senate.
In orange, you see the requirements of the Library of Parliament to provide a better, more appropriate visitor experience.
In yellow, you see the entry sequence, which will actually provide a fitting entrance, one that reflects the dignity of Parliament as it's traditionally defined. We would therefore integrate into a single campus the group of buildings that exist there now, create the connections to the East Block and the West Block and provide the new space for both the Senate and the House. Centre Block itself, freed up and opened up once again, will be able to function as it was conceived and designed, maintaining its dignity, history and prominence while ensuring it has an effective and efficient role as the centre of Canadian parliamentary democracy.