Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Patrice. Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. I am accompanied today by Duncan Retson, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, and Jennifer Garrett, director general responsible for the Centre Block program at Public Services and Procurement Canada. We

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Patrice. The program is advancing well, and to underline one of the takeaways from the presentation, engagement with parliamentarians on a number of key decisions is required to continue this progress. Given that the Centre Block serves all of Parliament, it will

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't see any restrictions mapped out. This is meant to be an opening engagement with parliamentarians.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Usually for these types of tours, up to 30 is quite manageable. When you start to extend beyond that, it becomes difficult to manage, and there are some health and safety considerations to take into account. We're not deep into construction at this point, but there are still some

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We can make that work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is an important question that we will have to work through together. It would enable us, as we continue to develop the requirements for the visitor welcome centre, to come back with some high-level comparisons. Of course, it is hard to give cost estimates before we have the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One of the challenges we face with the Centre Block and the visitor welcome centre—which is a bit of a shift from, say, the West Block, which we did in collaboration for the House of Commons, or the former Government Conference Centre, now the Senate of Canada Building for the Se

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Since the long-term vision and plan was recalibrated in 2006-07, there's been quite a strong track record of delivering projects on schedule and on budget. Consecutively, 24 major projects were delivered on time and on budget. I can walk through a couple of those, if that would b

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To my understanding, it's the committee on internal economy, budgets and administration. There is, traditionally, a subcommittee on the LTVP, or the long-term vision and plan, which is the work we're undertaking on the restoration and modernization of the precinct. To my underst

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The numbers would be similar to this committee, not entirely—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that is potentially in a little bit of flux in the Senate.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I've been here working on this for over 15 years, and it pre-existed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There has been fairly active engagement with the Senate on the ongoing work. The Senate has revitalized the parliamentary precinct over a number of years.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There is a bit of a combination between the Senate administration appearing without Public Services and Procurement Canada. We are called to some of those meetings. Over the past 10 years or so, I have attended probably in excess of 20 meetings of the Board of Internal Economy an

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I couldn't—