I would like to call today's meeting to order.
Folks, we have with us the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Gerry Ritz, along with department heads. We'll start this with Greg Meredith, Andrea Lyon, and Pierre Corriveau.
I want to thank each of you for coming out.
As you know, this is the discussion around the estimates. What I would like to do is just ask you, Minister, because I think we are in a pretty tight schedule in terms of timing, whether you have an opening statement or if in lieu of time you would prefer to go into questions. I don't know what the committee wishes to do.
Minister, are you open to either one?