Good afternoon, colleagues, and welcome. May I ask you to take your seats.
It is a pleasure to see you again after our approximately two-week break. As you know, we are starting a phase in our work that will be a little more intense. We are going to have four sessions this week. Next week, we will continue with four sessions with witnesses present. Thereafter, around the middle of September, we will travel across the country for three weeks so that we can consult with Canadians where they live.
I would like to welcome Mr. Dubé, who joins us for the first time, and Mr. Ste-Marie, with whom, I believe, Mr. Thériault will be sharing his time in the period set aside for questions.
Today we have two esteemed witnesses: Professor Arend Lijphart, who is joining us from San Diego via video conference; and Professor Benoît Pelletier,
who, of course is well known both in Canada and in Quebec.
We will start with Professor Lijphart, but first, let me give you some details about himself, his work, and his interests in the context of his university work.
Professor Lijphart is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity in politics. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and is currently research professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Lijphart served as president of the American Political Science Association from 1993 to 1996, and in 1999 published his well-known book, Patterns of Democracy. Dr. Lijphart has won many notable awards in the field of political science and holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities, including Leiden University, Queen's University Belfast, and Ghent University, in addition to being an honorary fellow of Coventry University.
Professor, as a witness, you will have 20 minutes to present to us, and then we'll go to Professor Pelletier for 20 minutes. We'll then have two rounds of questions. Each member gets to ask one question in each round, and the question and answer period for each member lasts five minutes, including the answer. The question and answer have to fit into five minutes.
Without further ado, the floor is yours, professor. Thank you for being here via video conference.