I call the 70th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance to order. The orders of the day are pursuant to the subject matter of Bill C-62, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act.
Colleagues, as you know, we do have an order from the House. I will not read it in full but will explain that the report from the committee has to be done by 11 o'clock tonight. We have four hours from the time of the vote. The vote was called at 5:43 p.m., so we have until 9:43 p.m. At that time, if the committee is still debating the bill, I have to put every question necessary at that point without further debate or amendment, so essentially we have four hours here tonight to debate the bill.
We have five witnesses here before us who wish to present on the bill. I'm proposing that after that we have perhaps an hour with the witnesses, and then we proceed to clause-by-clause. We do have officials from the Department of Finance in the room who will be available for comments from members.
We have with us here today five witnesses. I'm recommending that we have between five and ten minutes per witness for an opening statement, and then we will have questions from members. My understanding in terms of presentation order is that Chief Angus Toulouse will be first; Chief Randy Phillips will be second; Chief Keith Matthew will be third; fourth will be Shirley-Ann George from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; and fifth will be Jean-Michel Laurin from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.
You have between five and ten minutes for an opening statement.
We'll start with Chief Toulouse, please. Thank you, and welcome to the committee.