Procedure and House Affairs committee  —which will be a key driver of the timing and the budget.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm not aware of any truth to that. No.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Perhaps the House can speak to that as well. The temporary loading dock that is there now was not part of the initial scope of the West Block. It's part of the broader long-term vision and plan. There are plans around a permanent materiel handling facility on Parliament Hill, which is not in place yet, so a temporary solution was required.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There was a plan to have a long-term materiel management and loading dock facility aligned with the opening of the West Block, which did not occur. There were some adjustments to the long-term vision and plan, so we shifted to a temporary solution.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This applies to the House of Commons.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. As I said, this part of the project has two phases, that is to say the needs of the building and the state the building is currently in. It is crucial that the walls and ceilings be removed so that we can determine the state of the building. That is impossible to do until it is empty.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. The state of this building is not exactly like that of a new building, like a house or some other structure. The conditions here are completely different. We need to remove the walls and ceilings, and so on, in order to understand the situation and reduce the risks.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, there was the type of assessment that you referenced made on the Centre Block. It's essentially a four-point scale. Centre Block was rated as a three on that assessment. It's within the department's assessment of its ability to manage projects of that size. That's a departmental assessment, and within the parliamentary precinct branch the approach on the Centre Block also rests on 10-plus years of restoring and modernizing the buildings within the precinct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think if you go back in the history, there were several attempted renovations of the Centre Block in the far past, but I wouldn't be able to go into the details of those. I think it is accurate that there were some planned restoration initiatives over a number of decades that didn't quite get to the point of realization.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We continue to monitor the building on an ongoing basis. Health and safety is the number one priority, and it is the real reason we've been collectively putting all this effort into making sure that the building is emptied prior to 2019, when we have that assessment that there really is an elevated risk that there could be a building system failure.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Centre Block project is essentially the apex project of the whole long-term vision and plan for the restoration and modernization of the parliamentary precinct. From its very beginning in 2001, the restoration and modernization of the Centre Block has been one of the prime objectives.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thanks again for the question. Perhaps I'll start off, and then maybe I can hand it over to the architects. No decisions have been made at this point on how to seismically retrofit the Centre Block. What I will say is that in all of the projects we've undertaken over the past decade, including the Wellington Building, the West Block, as you've referenced, and the Government Conference Centre, seismic retrofitting or seismic upgrading to meet modern building codes has been a key element of the project.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it would be too early to indicate that. Certainly, the Peace Tower is one of the tallest, slenderest elements that exist on Parliament Hill, so that is a challenge from a seismic reinforcement perspective. You're quite right that the Centre Block is a different building from the West Block, so a different approach will be required.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Maybe we can jump in from Public Services and Procurement Canada. Thank you for the question. As Ms. Kulba indicated, 2019 will really be a parallel activity of focusing on getting a full assessment of the condition of the building and on developing the functional program for the building.