Welcome to the 82nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
We are dealing with supplementary estimates (B) 2017-18 and votes 1b, 5b, and 10b under the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food. On that, I would certainly like to welcome the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. MacAulay.
We are glad to have you with us today, Minister.
I would also like to welcome Pierre Corriveau and Chris Forbes.
We will devote the first hour to the minister, and then we will continue with Mr. Forbes and Mr. Corriveau.
Before we start, there are a few things I'd like to bring to your attention. As the members who were here for the meeting before last will recall, we had an incident with the sound for the translators. I want to caution people not to put their BlackBerry or earpiece too close to the mike, because it makes a lot of noise. It's not a pleasant experience for the people in the booth.
Please think about that before you put your device near the microphone.
Again, we have the minister with us, and I also want to welcome Mr. Kelly McCauley, who is replacing Luc, and Mr. Ziad Aboultaif, who is replacing Mr. Barlow.
Mrs. Boucher, welcome again.
Also, I'd like to welcome my chair of the fisheries and oceans committee. We have switched places today. I welcome Mr. Scott Simms, who is replacing Pierre Breton.
With that, we'll get under way.
Mr. Minister, we'll give you your opening remarks. Go ahead.