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 have been asked today to provide an update on the long-term vision and plan with a focus on the Centre Block program and Block 2 redevelopment. As Mr. Patrice indicated, we will be making a presentation together. In addition to providing an update, we will discuss the options that have been developed to support decision-making on critical aspects of the project, such as the House and Visitor Welcome Centre. This informative presentation will cover a number of important topics. If the committee wishes to take a break to discuss them, we would be very pleased to do so at any time.
Let me begin by saying that we are very pleased to be here today to continue our collaboration with parliamentarians. This is very important to ensure that our efforts meet the needs of parliamentarians and a 21st century Parliament in Canada. On that note, allow me to offer the committee any follow-up that committee members find useful or relevant.
On this slide, you can see the long-term vision and plan, or LTVP, for the Parliamentary Precinct in action. The LTVP was first established in 2001, and was then revised in 2006, and is currently being updated a second time. The LTVP is essentially a joint planning framework developed with parliamentary administration to respond to three critical factors.
The first one is the aging and deteriorated buildings. Core buildings throughout the precinct—well over 100 years old, in an unforgiving climate and never having had major conservation work—were severely deteriorated and at risk of failure.
Second, the buildings did not provide enough space. For example, when Parliament first opened over 150 years ago, there were 181 members of Parliament. Now there are 338, and that number is projected to continue to grow, to 400 and beyond.
Third, the buildings didn't support a modern Parliament. These heritage buildings require significant modernization to meet new and evolving needs.
Compared with a century or more ago, Parliament faced a markedly different security reality. It also increasingly engaged citizens using modern broadcasting and video conferencing capabilities, and Parliament needed a more accessible and family-friendly environment. The precinct simply didn't support a modern parliamentary democracy in a changing world.
This joint planning framework is critical to ensuring that our collective efforts meet the needs of Parliament and parliamentarians. What is required to support a modern Parliament is, however, an evolving requirement. Security, accessibility and sustainability needs, for example, have changed significantly just over the past decade and continue to evolve. Getting the balance right between restoration and modernization in these projects is one of the key challenges we face.
The long time scale it takes to implement these massive and complex projects, and the life cycles of the investments, which run upwards of 60 to 100 years, mean that it is critical to think in the long term and ensure the decisions are resilient and enduring.
Over the past decade plus, significant progress has been made in addressing these core challenges and in implementing this long-range plan. Over this period, the LTVP has guided the implementation of a complex series of interdependent projects—many of the largest projects are highlighted in blue on the slide—that have restored and modernized many important heritage assets, assets that were deteriorated, underutilized or sitting vacant, such as the Sir John A. Macdonald and Wellington buildings and the Senate of Canada building, as well as the West Block, of course, one of the three original Parliament Buildings, and the beautiful Library of Parliament.
Importantly, the successful completion of this sequence of projects enabled the historic transition of Parliament out of Centre Block, the iconic home of Parliament, just over one year ago. This transition has allowed us to launch its restoration and modernization.
Our presentation today will provide an update of the Centre Block project and will review some of the key elements and options for the operation of Centre Block once restored. It will be important to ensure that we achieve the optimal balance between restoring what is perhaps Canada's most important heritage building and ensuring that it meets the future needs of Parliament and parliamentarians.
While Centre Block is a critical milestone, it is not the end of the LTVP. Indeed, other important buildings are facing significant levels of deterioration and need to be modernized, including the Confederation Building and East Block.
Now that we have made it to the Centre Block, we can begin to look forward in our planning to reconsolidating parliamentary operations, with the objective of creating a fully integrated and modern campus for Parliament. Ensuring that the revitalized precinct is a consolidated and modern campus for Parliament means a shift from a building-by-building approach.
Taking a more holistic approach will enable us collectively to think through how everything fits together and works in a more integrated manner, including reimagining and redeveloping the adjacent heritage assets on the three city blocks facing Parliament Hill to meet current and future needs; rethinking the movement of people and goods within the precinct; creating a fully digital Parliament; ensuring that the precinct is fully aligned with growing priorities such as sustainability and accessibility; and, reimagining approaches to security to make them more layered while making the campus even more welcoming to visitors.
In this way, we are ensuring that the parliamentary campus will be flexible and resilient so that it can truly meet the changing needs of Parliament over the next few centuries and beyond. The redevelopment of Block 2 is truly the launch of the parliamentary complex strategy that has been approved by Parliament and the government.