Mr. Chair, as we note in the report, we looked at the project management for certain buildings on Parliament Hill: the West Block and the Library of Parliament.
We didn't look at all the project management activities of Public Works. Should there be a hearing, those would be the kinds of issues you might want to discuss with them.
One of the big issues, though--and we have raised this on other occasions--is the way funding is given to projects. If it goes year by year, there are stops and starts. Certain members will know we have had very interesting and long discussions with other committees about accrual appropriations, multi-year appropriations, to ensure that when a project starts, be it the construction of a building or an IT project, all the costs are known to parliamentarians at the beginning, that they are approved, and then the project proceeds.
The way it is now, they essentially get the money perhaps for the scaffolding, but then they don't get the money to actually do the repairs. I don't know if that is applicable in that case, but they can get funds to dig a hole and then they don't get the funds to build the building.
We believe there is a real need to look at these large projects that extend over many years and resolve how the appropriations are dealt with in that case. I know there have been recommendations from other committees that this be done, and that might be an issue. I would encourage the committee to look at that with government again. I think that is also one of the reasons for many of these delays they're incurring.