Parliament Hill’s Centre Block is badly in need of repair and there is a danger it will reach “a critical risk of total failure” within seven years, Public Works officials revealed Thursday.

Testifying before the government operations committee, Pierre-Marc Mongeau, assistant deputy minister, said Centre Block, which houses the House of Commons, the Senate and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, is deteriorating and systems risk failing by 2019.

“This means that there is a possibility of structural, mechanical and/or electrical failures, which could render the building inhabitable and require it to be shut down,” Mongeau told MPs. “Other major issues at this time include the presence of hazardous materials and the need for seismic upgrades to comply with national building codes.”

Under questioning by MPs, Mongeau painted a bleak picture of the state of one of Canada’s most historic buildings.

“In 2019, the principal systems will arrive at the end of their useful life… Currently we are extending the life of mechanical systems but at a certain point we will no longer be able to repair these systems.”

When it comes to the electrical systems, the building is plagued by broken electrical relays. “Our technicians need a lot of ingenuity in order to repair those kinds of things,” said Mongeau. “In other cases… a transformer exploded because it came to the end of its useful life.”

In fact, MPs don’t have to look any further than the House of Commons chamber to see one of the problems, Mongeau said.

“You have big stained glass windows and they are beginning to be unstable. For example, a piece has already come off. That forces us to put a protective net in front of those windows.”

Mongeau said Public Works is currently looking at options to allow the Centre Block renovations to be done as rapidly as possible.

Currently, the government’s Long Term Vision and Plan for renovating Parliament Hill calls for the House of Commons to move into temporary quarters in the West Block by 2017 to allow the Centre Block to be renovated. The Senate is to move to temporary quarters in the East Block.

The budget for the Parliament Hill renovations currently stands at $1.1 billion for the renovations to the West Block and the former Bank of Montreal building across the street plus another $425 million for the Wellington Building.

Mongeau said so far the projects are on time and on budget.

However, that price tag does not include the cost of renovating Centre Block.

Thursday, MPs got a glimpse of what awaits them when they make the move to West Block in 2017.

Flanked by a model of the renovated building, Mongeau and Ezio DiMillo, director general for major crown projects, said the House of Commons chamber will sit in the centre of the building under a special triple-glass roof. An inner layer will act like a pillow and capture heat.

“Even during the winter months it will be capturing heat,” explained DiMillo. “It will be recirculated into the occupied space. All the mechanical and electrical systems that are extracting that heat will be ducted down into the actual chamber. That roof will actually produce approximately 10 per cent of the energy requirements of that building on a sunny day even in the wintertime.”

Mongeau said sensors throughout the building will allow the temperature or the light to be adjusted in rooms when nobody is in a room.

“We’re making sure that everything is the latest on the level of the environment.”

Mongeau said the building could be equipped for electronic voting or wifi should the House of Commons decide to introduce them.

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