Order, please.
This is the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), today we have before us the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. We have the Information Commissioner, Mr. Robert Marleau; Andrea Neill, assistant commissioner, complaints resolution and compliance; and Suzanne Legault, assistant commissioner, policy, communications and operations.
Welcome to you all.
Colleagues, just to clarify how we might proceed here, as you know, the Information Commissioner was invited, along with the other commissioners, to come before us with regard to their annual report, and to brief us on matters of urgency for our attention. Last week, you also know, the commissioner tabled a report card on ten departments. The information has been circulated to you all, and we hope to be able to address both, but maybe concentrate first of all on the commission itself, the act, and some of the priorities. Then maybe we can get into the report more specifically.
I can also report to you that after discussion with other members, the commissioner has agreed to reappear before this committee next Monday to more fully receive our questions and concerns with regard to recommendations for improvement of the act pursuant to that report, and to consider other matters related to improving the whole regime of access to information.
So we do have some work we're going to proceed with here. I've asked the clerk to make inquiries of the availability of the Minister of Justice, who is the minister responsible for the Access to Information Act. I've also asked Mr. Marleau to consider making recommendations to us on whether there may be two or three witnesses who may be helpful, people who are very much up to date on the current status of access legislation in other jurisdictions and assessment of the condition of our current act and our situation.
That said, we certainly appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Commissioner, to hear from you, as this committee has not, since 2006, had an opportunity to address specifically any of the concerns or recommendations from the commissioner's office due to other work. We make that commitment now and we welcome you here.
I understand you have opening comments, so why don't we proceed with that so we can get on with our work.