Good afternoon everyone. I would like to welcome the witnesses who are appearing before our committee.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the industry committee.
I'd like to welcome our four witnesses today. In particular I'd like to thank Minister Clement for appearing in front of our committee today. I know that you often don't have a lot of time, and we appreciate the two hours you've taken out of your busy schedule to appear in front of us. Also, you are appearing in front of this committee on very short notice, having been asked only last Friday to make this appearance. So thank you very much.
Before we begin, I'd just like to make a few remarks to the committee. Members of the committee will have copies of the supplementary estimates B relevant to the votes referred to in this committee. They were taken from the Treasury Board website.
Pursuant to Standing Order 81(5), the supplementary estimates will be deemed to have been reported three days before the end of the supply period--in other words, three days before March 26--or no later than three sitting days before the last allotted day in the supply period, which is yet to be determined. Right now it stands at no later than March 26.
The minister and his officials will have 20 minutes to make their opening statements. We will then follow with a round of questions based on the order established in the routine motions last adopted. After the questioning on the part of the members of this committee, we will take the last 10 minutes of this meeting, before 5:30, to go through the votes for each of the items in the supplementary estimates B, and then we'll vote on reporting the estimates back to the House. So we'll end the questioning of the witnesses 10 to 15 minutes before 5:30 so that we can go through the votes on the supplementary estimates.
Without further ado, I invite the Honourable Tony Clement to take the floor.