Good afternoon, everyone.
Sorry for the delay because of the votes. We'll be heading into another set of bells in the very near future, so let's quickly continue with our agenda.
Appearing today on the main estimates, votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 under National Defence, referred to committee by the House of Commons on February 25, are the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, and the Honourable Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Associate Minister of National Defence.
They are joined by members from the Department of National Defence: Bruce Donaldson, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff; Michael Martin, senior associate deputy minister; Kevin Lindsey, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer for finance and corporate services; and Patrick Finn, chief of staff in the materiel group.
I want to welcome all of you to committee.
Mr. MacKay, if you could make your opening comments, we would appreciate that.