Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 44th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We are convened today to deal with the certificate of nomination of Mr. Joe Friday to the position of Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, referred to this committee on Monday, March 23, 2015.
We are pleased to have Mr. Friday here with us for this formal vetting process. I'd like to say at the outset before Mr. Friday begins his remarks that he did send a letter to the committee, which committee members will have seen, to explain why he was unable to attend a week or so ago when we were interested in calling him to speak to the committee when he was nominated as the interim commissioner.
We got the letter, Mr. Friday. We understand fully, and we accept your apology and explanation. The committee understands completely.
Having said that, we only have one hour to deal with this, ladies and gentlemen, so we will be trying to keep the questions very tight with five-minute rounds for the questions and answers. At 9:40 I will ask for the question to be put so that we can make the report to the House of Commons in routine proceedings, which will begin at 10 o'clock.
Having said that, let's welcome Mr. Friday and ask him to please make his opening remarks.