Good morning, everybody. We'll get our meeting started.
I should mention that the last 15 minutes of this meeting, from 10:30 to 10:45, will be set aside for committee business. We will be hearing from witnesses until 10:30.
I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses today.
We have Anita Gaffney from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and Janice Price from Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity. Welcome.
Now, by way of video conference--and we have to remember, it's 8:45 here but it's pretty early over on our west coast--we have Sarah Iley, vice-president of programming at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta; and Fatima Amarshi of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Welcome to all of you. The way the committee works is that each of our witnesses will have ten minutes for opening remarks. Then we will go into rounds of questioning.
I think we'll start with you, Anita, if you don't mind. Someone has to be first, so we'll let that be you.
We're here to listen to your opening remarks. You have the floor.