Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Jackson, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Deputy Speaker, it's nice to see you. The tour this morning was a pleasure.

I mentioned to a few of you that I was an MLA in the Manitoba legislature. We have a renovation project on the foundations of our building going on as well, so it's quite interesting to compare doing foundation work along the Assiniboine River and the Red River in Manitoba with working on the rock and banks of the Ottawa River. They're very different projects with different problems.

My first question is about some of the heritage pieces you talked about. You said there are 50 Pearson rooms. Is that correct? Would you be able to table a list of what those 50 are? I'm very curious. I didn't realize that there were that many.

[Benoit Dicaire]

Yes, we can table that. We have that.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you very much.

Regarding the upper floors, I know I asked a few of these questions already, but I just want to make sure they're on the record.

I had heard, as rumours go on Parliament Hill, that the upper floors of the building would perhaps end up reflecting more of the hallways of the West Block, as in drywall and painting and that type of thing in the hallways and offices. I'd just like a clear understanding of whether they're going to look similar. Is any part of the building going to look like the West Block, or will it all return to the solid stone walls it had in the past?

[Jennifer Garrett]

Let me assure you that the upper floors will look exactly as they did before the building closed.

I think it's important to point out to this committee that West Block and Centre Block were two different buildings at various start states before they completed their rehabilitation processes. West Block, unfortunately, had gone through an interim rehabilitation in the 1950s time frame that had gutted all of the heritage features in the interior of the building. That's why the interior of West Block looks very different from the interior of Centre Block.

We have carefully, for Centre Block, taken every stone off and tagged it. We know where they came from and we are putting them back into the building where they came from, so you should not be able to discern a difference in the upper floors between pre-closure and the building's reopening.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

As a proud Manitoban, I'd be remiss not to ask about the status of all that stone and if you've had to source any new Tyndall stone from Manitoba, where it originally came from, to replace stuff that was beyond repair.

[Jennifer Garrett]

I am proud to say that a lot of the interior stone is Manitoba Tyndall stone. When we have to source it, we source it from Manitoba.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Very good.

In terms of the steel that's gone into the building, there have been a lot of questions about that. I think I asked one individual—I don't see him here—about the amount of steel that has gone into reinforcing the foundation of the building. It might have been around 200,000 metric tons of steel. It was an astronomical figure. I think it would be important for the committee to have that information, if it could be provided.

[Jennifer Garrett]

We were able to get that answer for you off-line. Unless I'm mistaken, and we'll clarify it if I have made a mistake, I believe it's 2,000 tonnes. That's going from memory from what I was told when we were walking the site.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

In terms of the blank slates and the architectural pieces that Pearson intentionally left, is part of the program to have some of those carved before opening? What does that process look like?

In terms of where the country is now versus when the building was built, I want to make sure that, if there are different parts of the country reflected on a provincial level, Manitoba artists are certainly reflected as well as folks from other parts of the country, or that images of our province are just as much represented as other parts of the country. I'm curious about what the process of how those will be developed looks like.

[Benoit Dicaire]

Maybe I can take the first part of the question. The partnership with Jennifer will help on this one.

When it comes to decorative art, a specific governance has been established. It goes through the Speakers of the Senate and the House, in consultation with the MP working group. When there's a commissioning of art or when there's an alteration to existing decorative art, there's a consultation process. It goes all the way up for approval through the Speakers' offices. That's the governance aspect, just to lay the foundation.

Our work right now is on restoring. In partnership with Jennifer's team, the dominion sculptor, who is an employee of PSPC, is in charge of the rehabilitation of the heritage aspects that are tied to the decorative art program and tied to sculptures specifically. If there's an opportunity to introduce new art, working in collaboration with the executive branch and ourselves in parliamentary administration, the process of governance is invoked once we look at it. However, the main focus at this point in time in the governance has been the rehabilitation of the heritage aspects that are tied to the building.

Mobile decorative art, such as paintings, have been put into storage at Heritage right now for conservation, and they're being looked at from a rehabilitation perspective and with a restoration aspect. Curators are engaged. There's a curator who is an employee of the House of Commons and the Senate. At this point, they're engaged in those specific things.

So governance is established now. There's an opportunity, and it would be working in partnership, especially when it comes to carvings, with the team that Jennifer leads.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll now turn to Mr. Wilkinson for five minutes, please.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

Thank you very much to the witnesses for coming.

I have just a comment to start. I'm glad to hear of the prioritization of Canadian steel. Obviously, at a time when the sector in Canada is under attack, it's important for us to be not only buying Canadian steel but also setting the example as the Government of Canada.

I have a question on procurement. It goes a bit to what Mr. Kram was asking about. Often, procurements that take place in Ottawa are visible for particularly companies in Ontario and Quebec. What have you done in terms of outreach to ensure that companies in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and other places in this country are aware?

[Jennifer Garrett]

First and foremost, all our procurements are done in the public domain. Similar to Government of Canada procurements, they are up on public platforms for people to see.

Our constructors, EllisDon and PCL, are buying the job for us based on the design packages that are being delivered to them. They are companies with a national footprint. We have asked them to shake trees across the country. We've had several engagements with them. They understand the intent. In fact, even as it relates to indigenous businesses, we pay PCL to have an adviser who connects on the indigenous front with indigenous communities in the Algonquin to try to make sure we are providing business to indigenous firms as well. We're making good progress on that front.

That's what we do right now. We keep very close track of which provinces and territories are and are not part of the program. We are always encouraging our constructors to make sure they have market intelligence for industries that are outside of what I will call the national capital region. I will say, though, in defence of our construction manager, that some companies outside of the national capital region make business decisions to not compete. There's not much we can do about that. Our job is to make sure that the procurements are transparent and that we are providing the information that lets them make business decisions to compete or not compete.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

There are only a few of us around this table who actually worked in Centre Block. One of the challenges of Centre Block was that it was not very accessible. What are we doing to ensure that the future Centre Block is going to be much more accessible?

[Jennifer Garrett]

This is part of the design and the work we're doing across the precinct, and it is something we're quite proud of.

First and foremost, let's talk about Canadians coming to see their Parliament in action. Prior to closure, neither the chamber itself for parliamentarians nor the public galleries were accessible. Once the building reopens—and I'll just remind the committee that a big portion of the landscape is part of this program and we've completed the design for that—any visitor to the Hill will be able to come from Wellington Street up through the new visitor welcome centre, be screened, and be able to access the chambers to see their Parliament in action.

We have completely designed the chamber so that.... I would say, just to step back, that one of the design principles for this program is a dignified welcome for all. This means that as much as possible and whenever possible, people with disabilities are able to have the same experience that others are. To that end, the chambers will be accessible, and committee rooms have been accessible.

We're actually working with Accessibility Standards Canada. We, in some cases, are going beyond code. We're piloting new technologies, such as invisible lifts. We're doing a pilot right now in East Block to test this technology. Essentially, it looks like a stair until it isn't, and then it turns into a lift. We're looking at those kinds of capabilities, as examples, to allow parliamentarians, MPs, to access the lobbies to the chamber, which they couldn't do before. Actually, we're looking at them for the ceremonial entry of Centre Block too.

We're not just looking at mobility. We look at the broad range of challenges. We work hand in hand with the parliamentary administrations. We're looking at hearing, sight and neurodiversity whenever we can. Sometimes those create tensions and challenges even among themselves. We're doing the very best we can, and I believe we're a leading edge on this work.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

Do I have some time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

No.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

What a nasty chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Yes, I'm tough. That's good. I like to hear that from the Liberal side. It might give me some credibility.

Mr. Van Popta, you have five minutes, please.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here and sharing your important information with us. Thank you for the tour. It was very enlightening, and cold.

I have a question for the person who is responsible for the slides that were circulated to us. Okay, it's Ms. Garrett.

I started reading this yesterday, and I got hung up at the very first bullet point under “Long Term Vision and Plan”. It says, “$5.9 billion invested to-date, creating more than 89,000 jobs.” That doesn't seem credible to me. I don't know if that's a typing mistake—“89,000 jobs”—particularly since today on the tour and again reiterated at this meeting we heard that there are 700 people working on site and that that's going to be doubled to 1,500. If we multiply that by 10, that's 15,000 person years, or whatever you call that. That's a long ways from 89,000.

Perhaps you can explain how you came to that number, or if it's confusing, maybe you can refine it or correct it.

[Jennifer Garrett]

It's not confusing. I stand by the number.

I think it's important, as context before I answer the question, to remind this committee that the long-term vision and plan has been in place for a couple of decades. Like, the long-term vision and plan started in 2001. It was last updated in 2006, and we've just recently gone through an update. This is a multidecade strategy to modernize Canada's parliamentary precinct, and we track those numbers from the capital investment. West Block, for example, is included in that number, and so is the rehabilitation of the Senate of Canada building.

For PSPC to calculate those numbers, we use a Department of Finance and an industry standard approach of 15,000 person years per billion. That's how we came up with that number.

We would happily provide the breakdown of the details to the committee. I would say that Centre Block itself, in terms of those calculations, which are accepted by finance and industry practice, will create another 70,000 person years in jobs.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

What is the total cost of the whole project from start to finish? Centre Block, I take it, is $5.9 billion, but for the whole project, which is going to create 89,000 jobs, what is the total cost?

[Jennifer Garrett]

I don't have the total cost of the project. I can give you the numbers that have contributed to the 89,000 jobs to date, to provide the context.

As I indicated, this is a multidecade strategy. In the 2006 strategy, the rehabilitation of Centre Block and the Parliament welcome centre was the pinnacle project. Now, the 2025 long-term vision and plan update is all about a campus for the 50% of parliamentarians who will be on the south side of Wellington and about building physical infrastructure like tunnels, as well as material handling and other capital programs.

The reason I say I don't know the total cost is that we still won't be done when we get that infrastructure completed. We're at 11 buildings renovated to date. We will continue to add to that number, but as an example, the Confederation Building, which some of you may have offices in, is in desperate need of rehabilitation. It will not go under rehabilitation until the mid-2030s time frame. It is our next project in planning. I cannot provide an estimate for that because I don't know what its scope or cost is going to be at this time.

I am happy to provide a breakdown of the investments to date, what they contributed to and the jobs created. I'm not trying to get away from answering a question; it's just that it's a rolling program of work, and there will be more costs and projects to come before we're done this modernization program.