Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The work of the infrastructure subcommittee that is looking at the whole capital planning process is, in fact, trying to identify and come to grips with recommendations to deal with issues that the Member has raised: the concern about overdesign, the cost factors, the issue of standardized designs, the moving towards bundling of projects so that we can in fact be more efficient.
For us the evidence over the years has been clear in terms of the cost, the number of carry-overs, the number of tenders where there was one bid or no bids or bids that are not even close in terms of the difference between the cost of the estimate versus what was being offered. So there are a whole number of things that we agree have to be looked at and that we’re trying to come to grips with, which is why we started this process. There was a general concern that we could restructure government processes to be more efficient, effective and economical.
We have no design architects, for example, on staff, so that’s one thing where we do contract. Many of the project people, given the very many numbers of projects, have to be prepared to supervise multiple projects, often spread out over a fairly wide area. As well, we are working to get
better and better at our conservation standards for northern buildings, for our institutional buildings. We see the Greenstone Building that the federal government has built as a model for efficiency that we’d like to be able to try to reach. And we are continuing to work with and consult with the northern contractors, the architects, the construction society. We once again are looking forward to coming back to committee with the completed work of the infrastructure subcommittee that will hopefully address these issues in greater detail. Thank you.