I'd like at this time to call the meeting to order.
Bienvenue à tous.
First of all, I want to wish everyone a happy new year and all the best in 2011.
And before we start the meeting, colleagues, what I'd like to do is introduce our new committee clerk. We have with us Chad Mariage. He has come from the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. He previously was a clerk in one of the other committees. We wish Chad all the best as he takes on these new duties.
[Applause]
Colleagues, this is a continuation of our ongoing study into open government.
The committee is very pleased to have before us today Mr. David Eaves. He's a public policy entrepreneur, open government activist, and negotiator.
He works with the Harvard Negotiation Project and is a fellow at the Centre for Studies on Democracy and Diversity at Queen's University. He has advised a number of governments, mainly municipal, and of course was very involved with the Government of Australia in their open government concept. In my opinion, he is one of the foremost experts--if not the foremost--in this area here in Canada. The committee is very pleased to have him before us.
We understand that Mr. Eaves has a ten-minute opening comment. I'm going to turn the floor over to him and then we'll go to questions from committee members.
Again, Mr. Eaves, welcome to the committee.