Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is a double personal pleasure to appear before your committee to discuss proposed changes to the Statistics Act. After a period of formal association with Statistics Canada extending fully over 60 years, 23 as chief statistician of Canada and another nine as chief statistician of Canada emeritus, I am very happy to welcome this major step forward.
Second, as Mr. Smith mentioned, I was one of the authors of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. It is very gratifying to see several of its principles incorporated into the new Statistics Act.
You will notice, incidentally, that my comments overlap Mr. Smith's, but we haven't collaborated, let alone colluded.