Yes, thank you.
Mr. Chair, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today as part of your deliberations.
I am Dale Eisler, the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Communications and Consultations Secretariat, at the Privy Council Office. I would like to describe very briefly the role of the Communications Secretariat at PCO.
As part of PCO's support function to the Prime Minister, the cabinet, and the clerk, we focus on providing oversight and advice on government communications. In so doing, we work to ensure that government communications are coordinated and reflect the government's priorities.
There are two dimensions to that responsibility, one external and the other internal.
The external role is to work with departments in the planning and execution of government communications. The internal role is to support the Prime Minister's Office in achieving the government's communications objectives. In this regard, after September 11, 2001, weekly calls with security-affected departments were initiated to better coordinate the government's response to media calls on security-related issues, which obviously became a very predominant public issue.
The aim of these teleconferences was to discuss communications questions and ensure that the communications people were in a position to respond to media calls in as timely a manner as possible.
Part of that process led to one of the issues the committee has been discussing.
To provide greater detail and clarity on the subject, I'll ask my colleague Greg Jack, who works in my office on communications relating to security matters, to outline the facts pertaining to this issue.