MPs get interim House of Commons

Renovated West Block to be home as Centre Block fixed up

OTTAWA — Canada’s parliamentarians have a temporary new home.

They received the key to their new home last week, when control of the West Block was officially transferred to the House of Commons after a seven-year, nearly $1-billion renovation.

MPs will move to the West Block in the new year after Parliament’s Christmas break, making way for a makeover of Centre Block, where they normally meet.

Speaker Geoff Regan accepted a large, sculpted copper key from Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough on behalf of MPs at a ceremony.

“If this is the key, I want to see the size of the lock,” Regan joked.

Refurbishing Parliament’s Centre Block, including the intricate cleaning and restoration of its exterior stones, is expected to take at least a decade.

While a few finishing touches remain at the West Block — including installing MPs’ original desks from the Centre Block — the renovations to the stately 19th-century building are all but complete.

“On budget and on schedule,” Qualtrough said.

Renovations to West Block have “brought together the old with the new,” capturing the history of the stone heritage building while incorporating new technologies, Qualtrough said.

A triple-glazed glass ceiling, supported by 20 steel columns, over the temporary Commons has been designed to capture heat in the winter and expel it in the summer, Qualtrough said, as she stood inside the new-smelling interim House.

“The idea that the heat is captured by the ceiling and then distributed across [the floor] really helps reduce the [energy] output,” said Qualtrough.

Added assistant deputy public services minister Rob Wright, who has helped lead the renovation project: “And then in the summer, the heat that accumulates in the roof can be vented to reduce airconditioning expenses.”

The building was also designed to be more accessible, including ramps into a new welcome centre built below ground between the West Block and Centre Block where visitors will go through security screening before entering.

The West Block building was constructed between 1859 and 1906 and included a centre courtyard.

Covering that courtyard in glass, and construction of four new levels below ground, has nearly doubled the building’s usable space to 26,000 square metres. The West Block courtyard’s glass ceiling is supported by an earthquake resistant steel framework. Even though the courtyard is enclosed, it is airy and filled with natural light, part of the architectural goal of merging the indoors with the outdoors.

Louvered shades control the amount of sunlight shining into the interim House of Commons.

The West Block was built with about 140,000 stones, and half of them had to be temporarily removed and then re-installed. About 19,000 were replaced.

An overview of the modern West Block chamber expected to be home to the House of Commons for about a decade, starting in the new year.

Along with the main chamber, the West Block features smaller, more intimate settings for the work of MPs such as this committee room.

Left: House of Commons Speaker Geoff Regan jokes about the size of the symbolic key to the new digs during a ceremony last week. Right: Regan checks out the view from his new chair. The Speaker is responsible for keeping order and calling MPs to speak.

The entrance doors to the temporary House of Commons feature brightly coloured stain glass.