Merci, monsieur le président.
Thank you everyone.
Let me start by saying what a pleasure it is to be here in front of the committee. It's my first time in front of this committee in this capacity, although I have been here before in my capacity as senior assistant deputy minister in tax policy.
I thought I'd spend two or three minutes at the beginning to give you a couple of highlights on how I got to be here and then leave time for you to probe whatever areas you'd like.
I should start by saying that I graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a masters in economics, so I'm an economist.
I began working in the federal government in 1985, in tax policy. I was a member of the team that developed the GST.
I came here primarily as an economist looking at tax issues, and I started in the tax policy branch.
I worked in tax policy until 1995 when I started in the financial sector policy group, again at the Department of Finance, looking primarily at the regulation of financial institutions, managing the government's debt, money laundering issues, and I was involved in the start-up of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, etc. I was there through the time of the Enron and WorldCom regulatory issues as well. I then went back to tax policy.
That was in 2003. I have worked on a number of interesting issues in that area.
I was responsible for that branch of the Department of Finance and was there when we introduced things like the tax-free savings account, the worker's income tax benefit, and then through the income trust issues.
In August of last year I moved from the Department of Finance to the Treasury Board, where I got involved in management issues across the government and learned a little bit about how government operates from the central agency perspective of the Treasury Board. I was only there for four months before accepting the position at the Ministry of the Environment seven weeks ago when I was appointed associate deputy minister.
I should say at the beginning that I believe I bring a lot of background and experience to the Ministry of the Environment, particularly in economic matters. I think it's an extremely interesting time to be at the department. It's a challenge that I relish as I learn. I'm certainly by no means an environmental expert, but hopefully I can bring to the department some of the policy and implementation skills and economic analytic skills that I've learned to help face the challenges that are there.
As I say, I find it an extremely interesting time to be at the Department of the Environment with the myriad of issues we're facing, which I'm just learning about, and I hope I can contribute to them as I make my way up the learning curve.
With that, I would leave it there and open it up to areas you would like to probe.
Thank you very much for inviting me here today.