Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Chair. It's been quite a long time since I appeared in front of a parliamentary committee, something I used to do quite frequently as a deputy minister, so I'm looking forward to the discussion this morning. As you know, our mandate is to make non-binding, m

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Ms. Petitpas Taylor. In addition to what I mentioned in my introduction, I was also chair of the Public Service Commission of Canada during my career. Back then, just like today, the law stipulated that our role was to ensure that public service appointments were base

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. I have always thought it was important to continue our studies for as long as possible. In my case, I mostly went to school part time, because I had a family and a job while I was doing my master's degree and my doctorate. Every department I have worked for has had teams o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I must tell you that I have had many employees who had grade 9, and they did much better than I did because they had used their own lives to become experienced people. In terms of the criteria, we have those that are in the Constitution already, which are age, resid

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Then what we also are looking at, and this is public, is, first of all, people who have a very strong ethical background, extensive knowledge and experience, and hopefully an understanding of the institutions of our country. We're also looking for the identification of peop

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I think that this is a very important part. It can be demonstrated by the track records of the individuals in what they have done, how they have done it, how they have accomplished the responsibilities they have had in the past. Words take you only so far i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Briefly, Mr. Chair, what we do first of all is to put up a website so that it can be available to any Canadian. Second, we have worked very hard through press releases and media advisories to ensure that more and more Canadians and organizations are able to understand and, hopefu

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry, I just want to say that we'll also be reporting on a regular basis, and I would presume that our report would be public.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. First of all, you raise the position of deputy clerk of the Privy Council. The deputy clerk, of course, works very closely with the committees of Parliament, because in the position of the clerk, you're assisting as the secretary to cabinet in this regard. T

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, thank you. Also—I'm adding to your question here—when I was deputy minister of the Secretary of State, which is now Heritage, by virtue of the position I automatically sat on the selection advisory body for the Order of Canada. I was there for five years. Basically, what I

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Perhaps my answer would be that as a deputy minister I of course had to appear before the House of Commons, but I also had to appear before the Senate. I was able to see, as the senators reviewed legislation, how sometimes particular aspects were identified and how they were able

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have to look at conflict of interest here. You also have to go back to the order in council, which means that you are bound to keep the information that is there in front of you. I think it's through those instruments that one learns to keep information that cannot, either bec

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I started my life in Health Canada and moved on to Indian and Northern Affairs in the Government of Canada. I was able to discover the rest of Canada, discover our country and its people, to a greater extent than what I had known before. Basically, this was an impetus to stay as

Procedure and House Affairs committee  About countries—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think there would not be any problem in revealing the names of the organizations that have been consulted as widely as possible. I think if we linked the name with the candidate, then we would get into the privacy issue, because one would have to deal with the name of the indiv