The National Capital Commission (NCC) is planning to construct an underground Senate parkade at the cost of $1 million a spot, an expense one senator has called “outrageous.”
Alberta Sen. Scott Tannas told a Senate committee Nov. 9 that the NCC had proposed the construction of an underground parking garage at an as yet undisclosed location. The NCC, the Crown corporation responsible for Canada’s official residences, is the same agency that spent $8 million on a solar-powered barn for Rideau Hall.
Mr. Tannas described the proposed expenditure as “outrageous.”
“It’s not defensible,” he said, adding that while the current numbers show a $1 million per parking space cost, “there would be inflation. That was really a rough estimate.”
Manitoba Sen. Donald Plett predicted the $1 million per spot estimate “would not even touch it” due to the likelihood of cost overruns.
“We know it would be $3 million a spot and not $1 million,” Sen. Plett said, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The NCC has declined to comment on the matter.
The same agency is currently under investigation by the Commons public accounts committee for spending more than $8 million on a barn at Rideau Hall, the Ottawa residence of the governor general of Canada.
The barn’s expenses, totalling $8,039,853, were disclosed Oct. 18 through an access-to-information request by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
