Mr. Speaker, first, I want to examine the facts with regard to this motion. The Queensway Carleton Hospital pays approximately $23,000 annually to lease 50 acres of land. This lease was based on fair market value at the time. The land was leased for 40 years, or until 2013. The lease was granted in compliance with the relevant Treasury Board directives.
The hospital authorities and the member for Nepean—Carleton fear an astronomical increase in costs and, in communicating that fear to us, the member is being somewhat alarmist. The government and the NCC are refusing to transfer the land in order, among other things, to maintain the national interest land mass.
Motion No. 135 seeks to have the federal government transfer the land to the hospital for the sum of $1.
There is a world of difference between symbolically transferring a lease or land in exchange for $1 per year and trying to reach a reasonable agreement between the hospital's board and the NCC. In fact, on one hand, the hospital must ensure its survival. It is understandable that the directors are concerned. On the other hand, the federal government's real property program also deserves respect.
When Tom Schonberg appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, I regretfully was not present. That was when my father was dying. What he said was: “We need some security going into the future, first, so that we do not have hanging over our head a large lease cost that will not bring services to Ottawa, in particular the west of Ottawa, and second, so that there's some certainty, as I said, in moving forward with any partner that a substantial amount of money does not go into the leasing of land. That's what our issue has been to this point in time.”
I take from this that the CEO assumes that the lease will be terribly expensive and that this is a cause of concern to him. He also would like to have greater certainty.
I would add in passing that Mr. Schonberg's concerns, like those I suspect of all health facility administrators, are of course legitimate ones, given the federal government under-funding to which they are victims. One way to remedy this, one solution, is to require health funding to be improved while respecting the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec, rather than as an exception. This could prove an extremely fair way of distributing wealth.
After that aside, I will quote the chair of the NCC at that same meeting. He said “I am happy to say that I have already indicated to the hospital officials that we would work with them to look at a variety of options for the future lease. I met with senior hospital officials in January 2005. At that time, we discussed a number of alternatives for setting the future rent that would respect federal government policies, while offering the hospital a level of certainty to enable future expansion.”
The Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that the two parties must, first, continue to negotiate in order to reach agreement on renewal of the lease. There is every reason to believe that they will reach an acceptable, good-faith agreement by 2013. The cost of the lease will be reasonable and set according to Treasury Board standards.
Second, both parties must agree on an amount that reflects fair market value of the land at the time of the agreement, and not base it on past decisions on other NCC properties, which do not reflect today's reality.
The Bloc Québécois position is quite consistent considering the arguments by hospital directors, the Treasury Board and the NCC. It is also consistent considering the case of the Wakefield hospital in Quebec, located in part on NCC property. Since this property was not part of the National Interest Land Mass, the National Capital Commission sold it to the hospital.
The property in question is 3.5 acres of land that was sold for $5,000 an acre.
In 1994, the National Capital Commission sold land to the Perley hospital for $9 a square foot, because the hospital needed it in order to continue operating. This land, too, was not part of the so-called National Interest Land Mass.
These are two examples that show that the National Capital Commission has signed valid contracts without suffering a shortfall.
It is very important to note that the Bloc Québécois position is in line with our calls for returning expropriated land at Mirabel. The Bloc Québécois is not asking Aéroports de Montréal to give expropriated land back or to give it up for more or less $1, but to sell it.
In closing, it is very important that this situation is resolved without causing any financial repercussions to the federal government or for this to look like an indirect subsidy. Just like the hon. member who spoke before me, I want to add that the auditor general herself has already raised the issue of the need for transparency in the past and the need for the value of real estate to be known and taken into account.
It is not desirable to create a shortfall for the NCC, nor a precedent in this case.
As I was saying in the beginning, the two parties are now in negotiations. We have no reason to doubt that they are acting in good faith. They have until 2013 to agree, so let us leave them to it.