Robert Marleau , is a former Canadian federal public servant and former Information Commissioner of Canada. Beginning in 1970, Marleau served 31 years in the

Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada () is the Canadian federalism, federal legislature of Canada. The Monarchy of Canada, Crown, along with two chambers: the Senate of Canada, Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons, form the Bicameral ...

, 13 of which were as the

Clerk of the House of Commons The clerk of the House of Commons is the chief executive of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and before 1707 in the House of Commons of England. The formal name for the position held by the Clerk of the House of Co ...

from July 1987 to July 2000. From July 2000 until his retirement at the end of January 2001, he served as Senior Advisor to the Speaker of the House of Commons. He came out of retirement to serve as Interim Privacy Commissioner and again as Information Commissioner from 2006 to 2009. In his own words, during this time he was "for proactive disclosure, ... for more communication, posting more on the websites, using informal communication methods rather than the ''

Access to Information Act The ''Access to Information Act'' (R.S., 1985, c. A-1) () or ''Information Act'' is a Canadian Act providing the right of access to information under the control of a federal government institution. As of 2020, the Act allowed "people who pay ...

''... It's not helpful to appear to be deliberately not communicating,"TS, 26 May 2008 "How Harper controls the spin"
/ref> Marleau resigned from his position in late June 2009, roughly midway through his term. As part of a strongly worded criticism published by Bruce Campion-Smith, contemporary Ottawa Bureau Chief of the

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

, he lamented one day prior to his resignation the decline of "effort by any government to have" the ''Access to Information Act'' or similar "processes keep pace with time, change and technology." As Chief Clerk of the House in 2000, he was the editor, along with

Camille Montpetit Camille Montpetit was the second Deputy Clerk of the House of Commons of Canada, having served from 1998 to 1999. He and Robert Marleau coedited the first edition of ''House of Commons Procedure and Practice'' which was published in 2000. Publi ...

, o
''House of Commons Procedure and Practice, First Edition, 2000.''
which is available both online and in print. This work is part of an ongoing effort, begun in 1884 by Sir John George Bourinot, to document Canadian

Parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedures are the accepted Procedural law, rules, ethics, and Norm (sociology), customs governing meetings of an deliberative assembly, assembly or organization. Their object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of inte ...

. Marleau earned a B.A. in

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of Franc ...

from the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

. He received an honorary PhD in 2002. In December 2016, Marleau was named a

Member of the Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

."Order of Canada's newest appointees include Paralympian, Supreme Court judge and astrophysicist"

CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

, December 30, 2016.

References

University of Ottawa alumni Franco-Ontarian people Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Ombudsmen in Canada Place of birth missing (living people) Clerks of the House of Commons (Canada) 20th-century Canadian civil servants 21st-century Canadian civil servants Members of the Order of Canada {{Canada-gov-bio-stub

See also

References