I am not sure if he was on the list, but perhaps. Maybe the kids at Minto.
Let us look at how much money this developer invested, we will say, in the political parties. Then we turn around and we have a developer pick up, scoop up, a property for $30 million and say, “Hi, would you like to buy it for $625 million over 25 years?” I have to say that I do not criticize Minto Developments for that. We have to give them credit. If they can make that kind of money, the shareholders and the family firm will be very happy. It will be a good year for them.
We have to examine it and make sure that it sees the light that Canadians want illuminating it. I am going to go over a couple of the questions that I put to the government. Perhaps it is Waiting for Godot on these answers, and we know what happens there, where Godot never comes, but I am optimistic that we will eventually hear. Here are the questions I put to the government.
What financial details have gone to Treasury Board to support the agreement in principle? It is a very straightforward question.
I put a second question forward. Was the search for a lease agreement publicly tendered? I think we know the answer to that, but it is important to have it for the record.
What are the details of the tendering process for the relocation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters from 1200 Vanier Parkway?
Next, what are the details of the analysis for all of the options considered by public works prior to the agreement in principle with Minto Developments?
Last, was the City of Ottawa's 2001 policy of stimulating growth by encouraging the location of future federal workplaces near transitway stations, giving particular consideration to the east end of the city, considered in this decision? I have to say that this is not my riding. This is something I am putting forward because this was a consensus of smart growth that the City of Ottawa put forward to make sure that we would have some balance in our development.
I think those questions deserve answers. They deserve answers before the deal is announced. I think we need to have more transparency, particularly when we are talking about this amount of money. Part of the evidence that was brought forward to me was that there was to be a $5 million down payment to Minto Developments just to be able to discuss the deal. I am wondering if that money was exchanged. What happens if we do not have a deal? They keep the money, I presume.
Again, this is a shady deal. I have spoken to members of the RCMP, as recently as last weekend. I was at a community event and had the opportunity to speak to some RCMP members. I asked them what they thought about this. They were not keen. I dare say that they have not been consulted about this. We are talking about a workplace that is fairly central to the east, in the riding of my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier. We are talking about moving it to the other side of the city.
I think this is important these days when we are looking at planning and future proposals: we might want to consider talking to the men and women who work there. It means that we are talking about disruption of life. The fact is that their lives will be affected. Does it make sense for them, not just in the community but from a safety point of view? Does it make sense to consolidate all of those services in one area? I do not know. Maybe it does and maybe it does not, but that kind of thought process has not been put into play here. That is an issue of safety.
I have to say that there is another issue when we look at how much land is available. Recently, Algonquin College by the Queensway, which my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier will know, is available. Was that a parcel of land that has been known as being available for quite a while? Was it considered? What is the inventory of all the public holdings? Let us have a full analysis of what the options are. Again, we do not know. Maybe that has been discussed, but it has been kept from members of Parliament and therefore kept from Canadians.
The Auditor General recently referenced the fact that there have been some rather ill-informed, and some would say dubious, kinds of arrangements made with a lease to buy. What happens in these arrangements is that when one actually buys a piece of property it is possible to put off the books the money one would normally spend at the front end. It is possible to string it out over a period of time, much like what is done by many of the P3 operations we are seeing. What happens is that we pay for the building four or five times when we could have bought it once.
This arrangement is similar to that. In other words, would we rather own a home or rent? I know that most people would love to own their own homes. What the government is deciding to do is rent, the landlord in this case being Minto Developments, and we will pay for the building hundreds of times over before we own it. It does not make sense. The men and women who do their accounting at the kitchen table would not sign off on a deal like this. They would be very disgusted that this kind of financing is going on in this government or any other government.
In summary, what we need to do is make sure this does not happen again. We need to make sure there is some transparency, understanding that when there are competitive bids that process can be honoured, so there is no tipping, so to speak, of one company over another. It is done all the time.
We need to have competitive bidding. We need to make sure that we do not get into lease to buy arrangements. We need to make sure that we take out of the arrangement those who have given to political parties, particularly as we have found out that more than $70,000 was given to both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party by the developer. We need to make sure that the government is taking into account all of its holdings. We need to make sure the government is looking at the local municipality, in this case Ottawa, and is looking at its designs, its plans and its future. That is not being done here.
Finally, I must say that if this is the first test of the government for transparency and accountability, as a former teacher I have to say that it would get an F.