Musings of the Technical Bard

The Ministry of Public Works is alerting the public to the fact that the renovation of the parliament buildings is over budget and costs are rising, while completion remains years away.

In 1998, then Minister Alfonso Gagliano (of Adscam infamy) annouced it would cost $483 Million dollars and be complete in ten years.

Now, we are told that costs are over $1 Billion and rising, and it likely won’t be completed until 2020, and then only if Parliament and the government will get moving an approve the funding.

Now, I’m not happy that a project like this is held to the vagaries of politics.  It should have been funded in 1998 and contracted out.  Intervening minority parliaments should not have played games with this project.

My bigger problem is that, having visiting Parliament Hill and with some knowledge of the construction industry, would have thought you could just about bulldoze the lot and rebuild from scratch for $1 billion.  Now, maybe I’m underestimating, but a 59 storey, two city block wide office building in Calgary is under construction for the estimated cost of $1 Billion.  Now Parliament hill has a lot of stone work, and renovations always cost a lot (especially since it is clear the 19th century construction methods weren’t designed to last 1000 years or more (i.e. see buildings around Europe).  But don’t you think we should be either doing this right (i.e. finance it properly and move the workings of the state elsewhere until it is finished?).  Or perhaps the right answer is to tear them down and start again…