Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 93

The 1994 and 1995 federal budgets focused once again on cost reductions.
A committee of senior DND officers had come up with infrastructure
rationalization proposals that would reduce facilities to achieve the savings
that the Department needed. The result was the closure of 34 bases and
stations and reductions at 10 others—and the establishment of the
Infrastructure Reduction Program (IRP).
The IRP provided the umbrella structure needed to deal with new
construction and expansions of existing facilities at bases to which DND
personnel would be moving, along with the due diligence procedures
needed at locations that were being decommissioned. Identification and
assessment of environmental and other issues at decommissioned bases
prior to their transfer to third parties was expected to be a multi-year task.
To handle the immense amount of work, DCC and DND set up a joint
project office. There simply wasn’t enough time to follow the usual project
delivery process in which the designer is selected, the design is completed
and then the design is tendered for construction. Instead, a modified
design/build process was developed in consultation with the construction
industry in order to meet the imposed time constraints.
Along with Edmonton, other IRP sites that kept DCC busy during the latter
half of the 1990s included Gagetown, with its School of Military Engineering,
and Valcartier, with its Light Infantry Battalion installations.
The base at Downsview, Ontario was one of those slated for closure under
the IRP. Lynda Greenwood (Lenfesty), Manager of Business Operations at
the Western Regional Office in Edmonton, recalls being an inspector there
at the time, during the early stages of her DCC career.
Seeing through the tough times…
Downsview, 1996—Lynda Greenwood (Lenfesty)
It was a time of downsizing and a time of restraint, and it was really
challenging—it was hard to keep upbeat and positive, but that was what got
you through. I was in Downsview when the announcement came that the
base was closing, and that’s when it hit me—this is really happening.
I lived through all of those people working in CE—who I’d worked with—
getting their pink slips, and that was an eye opener…
BREAKING NEW GROUND
DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA
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