This presentation will provide an overview of changes to real property policy springing from the Treasury Board Secretariat Policy Suite Reset initiative, and how those changes dovetail with other federal policies and government priorities. An update on the status of the initiative, and the schedule to implement these changes, will also be provided.

Todd Sandrock, Director, Real Property Policy, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Todd Sandrock was trained in architecture and spent the first twenty years of his career at Nortel Networks, where he was responsible for design; project management; planning; workplace design; transactions; comptrollership; mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; audit; and, supplier management, all in an global corporate real estate context. Todd joined Global Affairs Canada in 2008 and spent nearly a decade there in portfolio management; business case development; transactions; change management; and investment planning. Todd is currently responsible for federal real property policy and corporate real estate management practices at the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Federal departments charged with the management of real property portfolios consisting of large numbers of sites face significant challenges in portfolio planning. This can be particularly true if properties are distributed across large geographic ranges or are located in remote areas. Under these circumstances, how are portfolio managers best able to make management decisions for individual properties? What options exist for portfolio managers? What opportunities exist for portfolio managers when planning for hundreds of properties with similarities in land use and/or physical characteristics? On behalf of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), a class level environmental risk assessment was conducted to facilitate portfolio planning for 197 federally owned properties (navigation aid stations) along the 1,700 km length of the Mackenzie River, NWT. The portfolio of sites assessed share similarities in configuration and land use.

One of the objectives for DFO in the management of their federal real property assets is to understand and manage potential environmental liabilities by identifying, and focusing attention and resources on, properties that pose a potential risk to humans or the environment. To achieve this, a class level risk assessment approach was developed to provide a basis on which portfolio planning decisions can be made by identifying potential property classes based on site activities or infrastructure resulting in a high probability of environmental impact. Site-specific quantitative assessment of environmental risks for a sub-set of the portfolio was conducted, with specific consideration of potential Indigenous land use and ecological receptors likely to visit the sites based on the ecological setting. Results of site-specific human health and ecological risk assessments carried out for 46 representative sites were categorized and linked to site features which pose a potential source of contaminants to the environment. The relationship between site features and calculated risk estimates was then used to conduct a-priori assessment to infer overall classification for any site within the portfolio based on the subset of investigated sites. The relationship between site characteristics (independent variable) and the relative risk to human and ecological receptors (dependent variable) forms the mechanism to predict the probable level of risk to human and ecological health based on site features in the absence of site-specific environmental quality data.

This class level risk assessment framework leverages the metadata from a large portfolio of sites sharing some similarities in order to create an opportunity for evidence based management and portfolio planning. The financial costs of conducting site-specific assessments at hundreds of remote sites would be staggering. This novel and innovative approach provides significant cost and schedule efficiencies. By using site features and characteristics as a data input, and incorporating this into the overall assessment, they were able to develop a risk ranking methodology for the Mackenzie River portfolio of Category 5 navigational aid stations, which can be updated to prioritize sites when additional information becomes available. This approach has potential to be implemented for any portfolio of properties, provided similarities exist for development of site classifications.

Heather Gretka, Environmental Scientist, AECOM Canada Ltd.
Heather Gretka, M.Sc., R.P.Bio is an environmental scientist and risk assessor, with seven years of experience in environmental consulting with AECOM Canada. Heather has experience in ecological risk assessment of federal contaminated sites. Her projects balance complex technical, regulatory, business, and stakeholder issues to produce measurable value and cost-saving approaches. AECOM’s Environment Business Line in Canada has over 4,000 talented professionals across the country, providing diverse services to government and industrial clients. A Fortune 500 firm, AECOM is distinguished by Excellence in Safety, Leadership in Innovation, Expertise in Technical Applications, and Delivery of Superior Client Service.

Craig Harris, AECOM Canada Ltd.
Brad Overton, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Mike Sanborn, AECOM Canada Ltd.
Katie Scott, AECOM Canada Ltd.
Jennifer Sifton, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Greg Wright, AECOM Canada Ltd.

Damage to underground infrastructure can result in significant direct and indirect costs. These include costs incurred to repair assets damaged during digging, evacuation of nearby buildings, mobilization of emergency services, and more. In the event of a serious incident, the health and safety of workers may be at risk. Until now, there has not been an integrated, national strategy for managing risks associated with excavations on federal property.

As the real property expert for the Government of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has taken a leadership role to improve the management of data relating to underground infrastructure assets, with the aim of reducing overall risks associated with excavation. We believe this can be achieved by improving the management of geospatial information related to underground infrastructures and by leveraging regional 'call before you dig' notification centres.

PSPC has developed and is in the process of implementing its own national directive to ensure the sound management of data and to have its underground assets registered with regional notification centres. Sharing information about the location of underground infrastructure with regional notification centres so that excavators can check to see if there are any assets where they will be digging is a simple yet effective means of preventing damage to underground assets.

PSPC will share aspects of their framework, discuss key challenges, identify successes, and share insights into the operationalization of the national directive. Their methodology can lead to a comprehensive approach for developing and implementing a framework for managing information related to underground infrastructure for all custodial organizations across the Government of Canada.

The overall objective is to empower federal organizations that own underground infrastructure by enhancing their stewardship capacity to reduce risks of physical damage to underground infrastructure assets, to minimize service interruptions critical to government operations and to increase both public and worker safety for projects involving ground excavation.

Ravi Sundarararaj, Senior Director, Infrastructure Asset Management, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Ravi Sundararaj is Public Services and Procurement Canada’s (PSPC) Senior Director of Infrastructure Asset Management, responsible for Capital projects nationally for engineering assets, and leads the underground infrastructure initiative. Ravi has held a number of management roles, most recently the Service Delivery Executive for Science, with responsibility for national real property service delivery; and previously, the Senior Director for Professional and Technical Services, responsible for project delivery and architectural, engineering, geomatics and environmental services in the national capital area (NCA). He is a Professional Engineer, with a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta, and a Master's in Structural Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Jean-François Leboeuf, Director, Geomatics, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Jean-François Leboeuf is PSPC’s Director of Geomatics Services (NCA) for real property. Since joining PSPC in 2001, Jean-François has progressed within the organization into roles of increasing responsibility. He is experienced in managing departmental and horizontal files, providing strategic advice to the Deputy Minister, and has been involved with a variety of projects, including a technical survey of the Confederation Building in Ottawa. He is interested in strategic communication and the management of human and financial resources. Jean-François holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from Laval University as well as the professional title of Quebec Land Surveyor.

Following recent growth in asset management globally, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) brought 30+ countries from around the world (including Canada) to develop a globally recognized standard for management of assets (ISO 55000), that can be used by a wide range of asset owning organizations, including government asset owners, to ensure consistency.

The newly implemented O.Reg 588/17 is the first asset management planning regulation in Canada, and the Ministry of Infrastructure (MOI) requires compliance for all municipally owned assets commencing 2019. This is to ensure proper evidence-based decision making in meeting effective asset management across all publicly owned assets and to ensure that value is delivered from all assets. Some may question the usefulness of these standards since at first glance they appear high-level and more focused on asset management (AM) as a system instead of the actual management of assets themselves. It is important to remember that AM enables an organization to work collectively and more effectively in realizing value from their assets, and in turn achieve their organizational objectives. Assets only exist to support the delivery of a service/product, so what constitutes “value” will depend on these objectives, the nature and purpose of the organization, and the needs and expectations of its stakeholders.

The ISO 55000 standards don't lay out the details on how to develop an asset inventory, how to select a new IT system, how and when to perform condition assessments or how to develop a capital plan. It is not a how-to guide. The ISO standards simply set out the requirements of an AM system. The standard do have some basic building blocks that will assist an organization in framing its asset management plan (asset investment plan). The documents are focused on ensuring all parts of the organization are aligned to achieve common objectives, consistently and sustainably, over time.

For an organization to go through any business transformation or change, it is important to first know where it is and where it wants to go. From there, the organization can work out the roadmap and strategy to help it get to the end point. There are a variety of tools that establish a snapshot overview of an organizations' AM capabilities and competencies against a pre-defined competency scale. These tools are applicable to a wide range of asset types and business organizations, and can be easily customized to suit a specific organizations' needs. To realize a corporate level of asset management planning and implementation, there are multiple components of a Corporate Asset Management Network (CAMN). Best-in-class governance models must provide an unbiased approach and the ability to ultimately demonstrate optimized evidence-based decision-making works because the approach must be one of collaboration amongst all divisions across the entire organization. Building an enterprise-wide asset management program can be a daunting task. It involves the definition of core objectives, leveraging of partnerships, establishing a framework and management plan, and defining the core objectives of the program. It also requires buy-in from council, from the city manager’s office, and from various, relevant departments such as finance and public works.

One of the successes of the corporate asset management strategy is to implement full, comprehensive corporate asset management at the City. The organization can then demonstrate that it employs the leading practice and achieve maximum value in the management of assets. With the onset of O.Reg 588/17 many cities, like Brampton, have taken various steps to substantiate its leadership aspiration. In compliance to O.Reg 588.17, and as part of a Corporate Asset Management Policy, many cities are looking towards adopting an international best practices standard of asset management: ISO 55000. Breaking down the silos and developing an enterprise-wide asset management governance model to align with the corporate objectives of any organization remains paramount in what ISO 55000 states as a “line of sight” global best practice governance model for any government or real property asset intensive organization. 

Vanessa Chau, Head of Asset Management Canada, AMCL, Turner and Townsend
Vanessa Chau is the Head of Asset Management Canada for AMCL (a Turner & Townsend Company). She is a professional engineer and holds the Institute of Asset Management globally recognized diploma, with distinction. Previously, she was the Manager of Corporate Asset Management for the City of Brampton, with $6 billion of assets. For over 20+ years, Vanessa has gained experience working in government on globally recognized asset management programs across Canada. She is the founding member for Asset Management Ontario (AMONTario) which developed the O.Reg 588/17 with the Ministry of Infrastructure (MOI), and chapter of CNAM (Canadian Network of Asset Managers).