Thank you.
I have a whole series of questions on this, but limited time, so I'm going to go on to the sale of buildings.
I'm happy to hear that no decision has been made yet. You were read one quote from James McKellar. Incidentally, Mr. McKellar, who was quoted earlier, is the co-author or assembler of this book called Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences, one of the very few books of this nature, so he has some authority. He has concluded that this would almost certainly cost more to taxpayers.
There was another quote in the press not too long ago, from a professor of economics in the Department of Economics at the University of B.C. He said, “The stated argument in favour of the plan is that the new owners would foot the bill for renovations. Nonsense: The purchaser will incorporate the costs of renovations in the rent. The government will pay for the renovations either way. The question is whether this scheme reduces costs.” It goes on and concludes by saying, “Either way, this seems like bad public policy and lazy thinking.”
Now, if the decision has not been made, Minister, would you consider an option along the lines that I will describe now?
First, I acknowledge and I accept that since this country entered into a deficit situation more than 25 years ago, there's been neglect in maintaining our buildings. I don't question that. The previous government, once we'd eliminated the deficit, had started recovering some of the... But the problem is huge, and officials will confirm that. There was the rust-out program. We were starting on a priority basis, but there's no denying that we have a problem. It's been built up over the years.
But if we just rent out with a repurchase scheme for 25 years, I would argue that we're freezing ourselves — because once you've rented, you're eliminating some of the flexibility we would otherwise have — and 25 years later we're no further ahead, in the sense that those buildings will probably need renovations at that time, if not a complete retrofit.
Instead of doing that, would the government consider creating a crown corporation with a legal mandate to charge what it costs to the users, with the ability to borrow, backed up by the government, to do the retrofitting necessary and acquire or hire the expertise that currently the government doesn't have, so that 25 years from now we would have that expertise and could become a model to other governments and other countries on how to a manage public real estate portfolio?
Is that under consideration, Minister?