Good afternoon. Welcome to the 84th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance. Pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), we are continuing our pre-budget consultations for 2012.
I want to thank all the witnesses for joining us here today.
We have two panels of witnesses. In the first panel, we have five organizations that are presenting: Karen Leibovici, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities; Andrew Van Iterson, manager of the Green Budget Coalition; Terrance Oakey, president of Merit Canada; Serge Buy, the CEO of the National Association of Career Colleges; and Nobina Robinson, the CEO of Polytechnics Canada.
We welcome all of you here today and look forward to hearing from you. You each have five minutes for your opening statements, and then we will have questions from the members.
We begin with Ms. Leibovici.