Thank you very much.
I want to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today.
I'll give my remarks in English, but
of course, if you have questions in French, don't hesitate to ask them after my presentation.
Thank you for this opportunity to present myself to you. I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself, my background, and what brings me to this stage in my career.
I immigrated to Canada with my parents when I was 11 years old, on a freezing cold winter day in Edmonton. My father, also having worked as a public servant most of his life, taught me early on that hard work in this country significantly increases the chances of success, and that the more you give back, the more you savour that success. I've tried to live by those principles throughout my life.
I obtained my Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta, and right after that started working in the oil and gas sector. The mid-1980s weren't that kind to that industry, and I decided to retool and return to school, and studied computing science. After computing stints in both provincial and municipal governments, I applied and started my career in the federal public service with Statistics Canada, in the regional office in Edmonton, almost exactly 28 years ago this month.
Having introduced the first computers to field interviewers and after overseeing survey processing operations, I managed the administration and internal operations for the 1991 census for the prairie region and the Northwest Territories, and then subsequently managed all business and social surveys in the region, followed by overseeing all aspects of the 1996 census, along with the post-censual surveys.
I had the opportunity to conduct surveys with Canadians first-hand, myself, in numerous parts of this vast country, including the north and aboriginal communities. I introduced a number of automated systems and redesigned processes in the region, which got the attention of the chief statistician of the day, Ivan Fellegi, and I was asked to compete for a senior position in Ottawa.
I moved to Ottawa in early 1997 and started my work in the dissemination division, in dissemination functions. There I was responsible for transforming publications from essentially paper-based formats, at that point, to the web, redesigning Statistics Canada's database to disseminate its socio-economic time-series data and to dynamically generate tables and publications. This significantly increased access to the enormous amount of information from Statistics Canada to all Canadians through the web. I also oversaw a number of other initiatives, such as the data liberation initiative to get more public microdata into the hands of researchers, as well as the inclusion of Canadian statistics in our school curricula.
Shortly thereafter I took on the research and development portion of the census program in 2001, and with an amazing team saw the complete redesign of the program, including the mailing out and mailing back of questionnaires, the secure Internet application, and the automated conversion of written responses to electronic responses and data for the 2006 census. This redesign thrust Statistics Canada to the forefront of the world stage in taking a modern census. Thereafter the seeds of the current corporate business architecture and the integrated collection systems were sown, leading to significant cost savings, providing response options to Canadians for a number of business and household surveys, as well as increasing data quality and timeliness. I also led a number of international task forces and working groups.
In parallel, I completed a graduate certificate at the University of Ottawa in public sector governance and management. I took on the role of the assistant chief statistician of the social institutions and labour statistics field after the 2006 census, and also served as a co-chair of the government-wide policy research data gaps initiative, which saw the introduction of a number of innovative surveys. I was nominated to participate in the advanced leadership program at the Canada School of Public Service.
In 2010 I left Statistics Canada and took on the assistant deputy minister role in the minerals and metals sector at Natural Resources Canada, and for a one-year period, also at the same time, the ADM role of our corporate services area in Natural Resources Canada, followed by a senior ADM role for strategic policy functions in the department.
I was fortunate to lead a number of important policy and legislative files in close collaboration with other departments, covering the range of natural resource sectors, including coordinating a number of missions for business leaders to several countries and around the world to promote our resource sector. Working with provinces and territories and industry was critical in moving a number of key initiatives forward, and I supported ministers in federal-provincial meetings, including chairing a number of domestic and international fora. I took on a number of champion roles, including leading the assistant deputy minister learning committee for the federal government.
Two years ago I was approached to take on the role of the regulator responsible for overseeing reviews, approval or refusal, and any corrective action required to ensure the safety of food, drugs, and consumer health products that are consumed by Canadians. In addition to this role, I co-chaired the Government of Canada's Community of Federal Regulators, as well as chairing the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities.
That's where I was until asked to return to Statistics Canada as the chief statistician as of September 19, returning back roughly seven years after I had left.
With that, I look forward to your questions.