Government Operations committee  As I said earlier, part of the overall management regime is the accountability of the deputy head to deliver the program. For the vast majority of departments, real property or buildings are a means to delivering their programs; they're not core to what they do. How the department uses those buildings to achieve its program objectives is part of its accountability.

Government Operations committee  I would argue that it's difficult to set priorities. If you have one large organization, setting priorities becomes a greater challenge.

Government Operations committee  I would be pleased to answer. Thank you for the question. I mentioned Workplace 2.0 in my remarks, which is about a modern approach to office accommodation. I personally hate the cube farm. We've all seen the Dilbert cartoons, and we have floors of it that were built in the seventies.

Government Operations committee  No, I certainly agree. Those are what I consider to be some of the low-hanging fruit, if I can use that term. When you can easily do things to save.... Even going to waterless urinals, or, as you say, the low-flush—those are very easy things to do. In fact we did a number of initiatives under the economic action plan to address exactly that kind of thing.

Government Operations committee  Actually that's a great question. As I said earlier, the core of what we do is our real property management framework. It starts with inspections, condition rating of our assets, and identification of needs. Those then feed into something called the asset management plan, which takes into account the overall condition of the asset but also what is the long-term view for our use.

Government Operations committee  It's an interesting question. It never ceases to impress me when I look at our holdings literally coast to coast to coast. But ours is somewhat unique. We are office space. The act mandates that the minister is to provide office space for the federal accommodation. We are a mandatory service.

Government Operations committee  Certainly from Public Works' perspective, I know that we've been very pleased by the government's recent initiatives, mostly recently the economic action plan and successive budgets, where PWGSC has received funds to address our infrastructure, understanding that it does two things: it benefits the economy—it does create jobs—and it allows us to address our inventory, to upgrade it and maintain it as good stewards.

Government Operations committee  It is a good question. I would start with the simple fact that the average age of Public Works' inventory is 43 years; our buildings are on average 43 years of age. That puts them very old in terms of how they were designed and constructed. To bring new technologies to some of these buildings is a major undertaking, so I need to look at that in the context of the life of the building, how long we plan to occupy it.

Government Operations committee  PWGSC's inventory totals just over seven million square metres, or probably 72 million square feet. Half is crown-owned and half is leased. Our investments for greenhouse gas reduction targets are crown-owned. That's where we spend our money. I mentioned earlier that we sometimes invest in leases.

Government Operations committee  There are far more qualified people than me to speak on this particular subject, but certainly from my experience in working with our portfolio, it starts with the first question, which is how many days of sun a particular location gets. Wind might be a better alternate source of energy than solar—for example, in parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Government Operations committee  Certainly in the experience we've had to date, it's been part of the overall building retrofit proposal. It isn't a one-off, of itself. I don't know if FBI itself encourages or has had experience with solar panels, but in our cases it's been as part of an overall building renovation.

Government Operations committee  From my perspective, there was a time when greening operations were more expensive than the conventional, but I believe that time has changed. It's very difficult to provide an upgrade to a building today, whether it's an HVAC system, a chiller, or some aspect of our operations, that does not have a green attribute to it.

Government Operations committee  Without hesitation, I would say the taxpayer is better off. We are operating our inventory with fewer and fewer dollars every year, and achieving higher sustainability targets.

Government Operations committee  Your model is very much what we do; we look at the return on investment. As I said earlier, how we manage our real property portfolio is key and central to that function. If I'm going to retain a building for 20 or 30 years, then I look at more significant investments because I know the payback will be there over the life of the asset.

Government Operations committee  From the custodial point of view, those who benefit from the FBI—and I won't speak for NRCan. What I really enjoy about FBI is it is a structure that allows the private sector to come in and pre-approved companies and organizations make investments in the buildings; they are then paid back for their investment on the savings.