Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 14th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We now move to Mr. Nater.

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

I appreciate our witnesses joining us today.

I want to start with a comment, which I mentioned at a previous meeting that Mr. Wright and Ms. Garrett were not at. It's about this building itself. I find it very disappointing that Public Works, the department that's responsible for accessibility, which I personally find very important, would allow a room to be built in this building on the fourth floor that's not accessible. I'm someone who has a close family member who uses a wheelchair for mobility. My family uses strollers to get our three young kids around. So I find it very disappointing that the room is not accessible. I want to put that on the record once again for the benefit of a department whose responsibility includes accessibility. I am very disappointed by that. It's an exceptional building, but the fact that we have a room that's not accessible to people with mobility issues is disappointing. Frankly, I think it's unacceptable for the Parliament of Canada, and I want to put that on the record.

I would like to follow up on the slide that's here right now, which you touched on earlier, Mr. Graham. Am I right to assume that the visitor welcome centre, phase two, is going ahead? It's been approved and it's happening. Is that a correct assumption?

[Rob Wright]

Well, I would say that maybe the best answer to that, in a way, is yes and no, in the sense that the concept of a visitor welcome centre I think dates back to 1976 with the Abbott commission. There's a long-standing discussion around a visitor centre. As the security and threat environment has continued to evolve, the importance of it being a security element outside of the footprint of the core Parliament Buildings has increasingly become important.

With its becoming a priority as a project for Parliament, we did a review of the long-term vision and plan in 2005 and 2006, and this project was identified as a key priority of Parliament. There have been approvals that have been sought to proceed with this project. At the same time, what I would say is that on this slide you see here a footprint that exists because of the functionality that Parliament wants to be in there, which is an ongoing conversation. We haven't come to the end of that conversation. The shape of that facility I think is still very fluid in working with you.

It could become smaller, but I would say that my understanding at this point is that the requirement of having security screening outside of the footprint of the buildings is a fundamental objective of the long-term vision and plan. The visitor welcome centre exists first and foremost to meet that need, and then it provides multiple other benefits to Parliament in terms of providing interpretive services for visitors as well as core functions for Parliament that are difficult to fit within the heritage buildings themselves.

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

Okay. I want to maybe step back a bit, then. You mentioned that approvals had been sought, and I assume approvals have been given for certain elements. Can you share with the committee what those approvals have been, when they happened and what specifically was approved?

I don't think anyone is going to disagree about the security requirement and having it off-site. I assume that's the visitor welcome centre. One is that it's separate and apart, but I think very much knowing what has been approved, what exactly has been approved thus far going forward.... The front lawn of Parliament is Canada's front lawn. Having a massive hole into bedrock for potentially a decade I think would be a concern to the general public, which leads me to my question.

Where has the public been on this? Has there been any consultation whatsoever with the public at large in terms of having a massive hole on Parliament Hill shrinking the size of the front lawn for potentially a decade? Has there been any engagement?

[Rob Wright]

As far as public engagement goes, we work very closely with Parliament and want to ensure that parliamentarians are engaged. I think the public consultation—and perhaps Mr. Patrice can add to this—would be done in coordination with parliamentarians, which would be very important. We work hand in glove with the administration of Parliament. Essentially, one of our core objectives is to meet the needs of Parliament.

Our understanding is that the visitor welcome centre is a core priority of Parliament, for both the security requirements and the visitor services as well. Yes, there is the challenging path to getting to a better Hill, I guess, in the sense that there will be disruption, but one of the key objectives of the visitor welcome centre is to enhance the Hill for visitors—for Canadian visitors and for international tourists.

To get to that point requires disruption. There's no way around that. That's a choice for Parliament to make.

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

I am out of time, but the chair did give me a brief leeway.

Based on the current approval process, approvals that had been given to the Department of Public Works under the current timeline, when will a shovel go into the ground to start digging phase two of the visitor welcome centre?

[Rob Wright]

As I think Ms. Garrett indicated, this would be early 2020.

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

At this point, if we're looking at early 2020, this committee will disappear in five weeks' time and potentially may not come back until January of 2020, depending on when.... There will be no further opportunity for this committee to have input on the visitor welcome centre's phase two.

[Rob Wright]

But absolutely on what is in the visitor welcome centre, phase two—

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

But shovels will be in the ground. It's going to happen in that general....

[Rob Wright]

Unless we are given some direction to stop, then yes.

[Michel Patrice]

Frankly, the committee would also have a chance to provide input on the actual size in terms of the requirement and all of that, but the concept, as Mr. Wright pointed out, of the visitor welcome centre goes back a decade or so in terms of its approval.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay. Before I go to Ms. Sahota I assume that the visitor welcome centre phase two that Mr. Nater is talking about was approved by the Board of Internal Economy, because we just learned about it recently. We don't know anything about it.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I might, it was suggested that one of the things that's left flexible and yet to be decided is the size.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Right.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

How can they start digging if they don't know what size it will be?

I'm sorry, but you said that one of the areas where there was still some room for input and flexibility was the size of the welcome centre. How can you start digging it if you don't know how big you're going to make it?

[Rob Wright]

I'll make two points and then I'll pass it on to Ms. Garrett for some additional detail. The visitor welcome centre has been an important part of the long-term vision and plan for some time and has been in public documents for probably longer than a decade, I would say. We've made efforts to communicate that to parliamentarians and the broader public. Maybe we can make better efforts at that. We have an annual report that is posted on our website. It's outlined as a priority within that as well.

As far as the excavation goes, the visitor welcome centre phase two is going to have a significant footprint regardless of what goes in it. There's some fluidity, though, on making sure that it's sized appropriately given the engagement with Parliament.

I'll pass it over to Ms. Garrett.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry, I still didn't hear an answer. If there's still some flexibility about the size of it, how can you start digging the hole? That's all. How can you know how big a hole to dig until you know the size? You're telling me the size is flexible, yet we're going ahead and starting digging. I just need some help understanding this.

[Jennifer Garrett]

Perhaps I can provide a little bit more clarity.

In terms of digging the hole, you're correct, that it is important when you go out to tender that you give that contractor whom you're tendering the work to a sense of how big that hole is going to be. I think that in the context of the comments that were made earlier and back to my earlier comments about layered decisions—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes.

[Jennifer Garrett]

—how big that hole is going to be is of critical importance.

Then to the other comments that were made, what goes into it will become equally important, but that decision can be made at a later date when there's a little bit more information known and some more consultation completed.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We're getting....

Go ahead.

[Jennifer Garrett]

To answer the question more specifically, to manage that risk because of where we are, there are options in front of us. We can start digging the hole by making some assumptions about the minimum size of that hole.

And just going back to when we met about the elm tree, one of the things the committee actually asked us to look at doing was advancing excavation so that we could replant in the east pleasure grounds sooner than later, and we are looking at that.

But what is the minimum footprint that we know we're going to need to make it safe to start digging that hole, so that when Parliament comes back we can talk a little bit more? Having said that, some of the early decisions and engagements that we're trying to get at are discussions that we presented here today around things like committee rooms, which would ultimately influence decisions around how big that hole is going to be, as an example.

I can continue to try to clarify this. I'm trying to answer your question directly.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Let me just try to repeat that in my words and see if I've got it.

[Jennifer Garrett]

Sure.