Finance Committee on Oct. 5th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to leave it there. We are a little over time with our panel, but the next one will be a couple of members short.

As I said in the beginning, I do want to thank everyone for their presentations, for answering questions, and for the briefs that they forwarded to us previously.

Additionally, there is an open-mike session after the next panel. Anybody who wants a couple of minutes to make their point on the record without questions to follow is welcome to do so. We just ask that they register with the desk outside by 11:30.

Again, thank you.

The meeting is suspended for 15 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right, we'll reconvene. As I indicated earlier, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), the committee is holding pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2017 budget.

I thank those for coming here through the inclement weather. Some have presented briefs in August and the committee has those. Some others haven't, but that's fine.

We will try to keep our presentations to about five minutes, if we can. Then we'll go to questions.

We will start with the Regina and District Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Hopkins, the chief executive officer.

[John Hopkins, Chief Executive Officer, Regina and District Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here.

I tried to answer the questions that were posed in the paper, which I condensed a little bit.

Question number one asked about what federal measures would help Canadians maximize their contributions to the country's economic growth. First and foremost would be increased funding for education and skills training to meet the needs of the country, given the demographic shift that's occurring throughout the country due to the retirement of the boomers.

I also chair the Regina Trade and Skills Centre—I'll talk about that a little bit later—which I think is a model for the country. An active and vibrant economy where both career and business opportunities are around is very important.

On competitive personal taxation, I did look at taxation rates across the OECD, and we are relatively competitive, but there are probably some areas that we could look at. The ship may have already sailed, but we should allow Canadians their choice at to whether to direct their increased retirements contributions to either the CPP or to a locked-in RRSP.

Question number two asks what federal actions could assist Canadian businesses to meet their expansion, innovation, and prosperity goals. I think you've already heard this today; it's a really hot topic in this province. The answer would be to delay the national carbon tax to allow for future consultation with all stakeholders to determine if we're not better off to look at focusing our research and development to meet the challenges we have and to develop global solutions to help us reduce GHGs, as opposed to the 1.5% to 2% global emissions targets. A recognition that natural resources are a vital part of our national economy is very important to our members. A streamlined, predictable, and accessible regulatory environment is important. I'm not saying that there hasn't been work done on that, but more needs to happen, I would say.

Access to tidewater is absolutely vital. I listened in a little bit to the last presentation, and I would say that it is really important to have enough pipelines. Energy east is absolutely vital to us, and I'll go off my notes a little bit here to say that I considered what kind of media stunt we could pull in response to what happened in Montreal, to the point where I almost thought that if I got arrested, perhaps we would get the same kind of media exposure. I mentioned that to the chair of my board, who is a lawyer, and he said, “I recommend you don't do that”. It's not something we are doing, but I want to assure you that Energy east, and the pipelines, and getting our products to tidewater is absolutely vital to our economy here in Saskatchewan. I just want to make that point. If there is any point I can make here today, that's the point I really want to make. That is absolutely vital to us.

A return to balanced budgets, or at least a signal when we might return to balanced budgets, is important for us. The continued pursuit of international trade agreements, given that we're the most export-dependent province in the country, is really important.

On competitive taxation, again, EI should be a pure unemployment insurance program. I've heard that from our members.

In response to question number three, we favour access to education with a strong emphasis on educational alignment with industry demand. Here's where I'll just go off a little bit on the Regina Trades and Skills Centre. At our centre we do not offer any programs unless industry has come to us and said “We need to hire people that have these specific skills”. We train for those specific skills, and our success rates are extremely high, depending on what the course might be. Even during these challenging economic times, we've have some good success rates, and that's something we think is a model for the country.

With that, I'll just leave it there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, John.

We'll turn then to Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board, and Stewart Wells.

[Stewart Wells, Chair, Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here today. I don't have my presentation translated, but it will be coming shortly. I do have copies in English if anyone would like a copy after the meeting.

By way of introduction, the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board was formed back in 2006 to facilitate opposition to the illegal order in council intended to remove barley from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. The successful court action launched by the friends at that time resulted in more than $400 million extra being distributed to western barley farmers over the next four years.

My purpose here today is really to request that the Government of Canada act on recommendation number 48 that was passed by the finance committee back in March of this year. That recommendation read:

The federal government provide Western Canadian grains and oilseed farmers with a full and transparent accounting of the disposition of the Canadian Wheat Board’s assets since the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act received Royal Assent, and of the effects on the grain handling and marketing system since that time.

The reasons this is important is that during the destruction and subsequent give-away of the Canadian Wheat Board to foreign interests, the Conservative government of the day went to great lengths to confuse the public and farmers about the value of the Canadian Wheat Board and the amount of taxpayer money that was gifted to foreign beneficiaries. The examples that I will use this morning come from documents. The first one that I have with me is a letter by Conservative member of Parliament Leon Benoit to a constituent. This letter was dated October 29, 2014. There are many false statements in this letter. In the second paragraph, Mr. Benoit says:

The Canadian Wheat Board never owned the 3400 rail cars. Those actually belonged to the Canadian Grain Commission on behalf of the government, and the Canadian Wheat Board only painted its logo on them.

On May 10 of this year, a man named Mr. Greg Meredith appeared as a witness before this committee. I have with me his comments that are in the committee evidence. Mr. Meredith is self-described as "the policy lead on the removal of the single desk and the eventual commercialization of the Canadian Wheat Board". In paragraph 3, Mr. Meredith says:

The hopper cars likewise had debts secured against them; even though they were donated by the Government of Canada they used these as equity to build the corporation.

The third page I have with me today is page 59 of the audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board for 2011-12. The text says that “The Corporation purchased 2,000 hopper cars in 1979/80" and that "The corporation purchased an additional 1663 cars...in 2005/06". In short, the audited annual report says that farmers' grain purchased all the hopper cars operated by the Canadian Wheat Board and that the net book value of these cars was $34.5 million at the end of July 2012.

The Conservative MP says that the hopper cars were never owned by the Canadian Wheat Board, but rather by the Canadian Grain Commission. The policy lead on the destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board told this committee that the hopper cars were donated to the Canadian Wheat Board by the government; and the Canadian Wheat Board itself, in an audited statement produced solely by directors that had been appointed by then Minister Ritz, says that in fact farmers' grain paid for these hopper cars, owned by the Canadian Wheat Board with a net book value of $34.5 million.

That's three different versions of the same story. This example alone underscores why it is imperative that your recommendation number 48 be followed.

Secondly, there are hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for. In the summer of 2011, before any new Canadian Wheat Board legislation was tabled, an internal analysis conducted by the Canadian Wheat Board showed that a complete dismantling of the board, as what happened, would result in restructuring costs in the order of $400 million. This number was publicly disputed by then Minister Ritz, but the audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board for 2011-12 showed that the government did transfer $177 million of taxpayer money over to the Ritz CWB in 2012. Online government estimates seemed to show that large sums of taxpayer money were transferred to the Ritz CWB in the following years, 2013 and 2014, but Minister Ritz refused to table any financial numbers for the Canadian Wheat Board after 2011-12. It is possible that $400 million or more of taxpayer money was in this way transferred ultimately to foreign interests, namely the Government of Saudi Arabia and the multinational grain company Bunge. How many taxpayer dollars were used to prop up the Ritz CWB before they were gifted to foreign interests? Again, taxpayers and farmers have a right to know, and the remedy would be the implementation of recommendation 48.

The third and last example goes back briefly to Mr. Meredith's statement to this committee on May 10, 2016. He says that “the building was encumbered to slightly more than $1 million or $2 million than its worth.”

They're talking about the Wheat Board building. The building is still there, at 423 Main Street in Winnipeg.

He said that the building was encumbered to more than its worth. Lawyers acting on behalf of the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board have conducted a land titles search for the encumbrances mentioned by Mr. Meredith, and those lawyers have found that no mortgage was ever registered against that building while it was owned by the old CWB or the Ritz CWB.

The Benoit letter said, talking about the same building, “the old CWB had no net assets”, but that they leased the buildings. The audited annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board from 2011-12 said that the Wheat Board did own the building, and the net book value was listed at $13 million.

Again, there are three completely different stories coming from these two examples.

The previous government and its MPs did everything possible to devalue and undervalue the Canadian Wheat Board's farmer-paid assets. By refusing to release any financial information after 2011-12, the previous government was involved in a deliberate cover-up.

The current government included transparency as a cornerstone of its election platform. Ministerial mandate letters included specific directions regarding transparency. Nowhere is this transparency more vital than with the Canadian Wheat Board issue. A refusal to act on recommendation 48 would simply mean carrying on with the cover-up initiated by the previous government.

I look forward to any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Stewart, for keeping within the time. I didn't have to cut you off.

Next is Mr. Harrington, with Northern Lights School Division No. 113. The floor is yours.

[Tom Harrington, Secretary Treasurer, Northern Lights School Division No.113]

Thank you for the opportunity to present today.

I am Tom Harrington, the secretary treasurer of Northern Lights School Division.

I'll go into the background of the school division. We have about 4,500 students. We cover the northern half of Saskatchewan, and about 87% of our students identify as first nations and Métis.

I chose to focus mainly on question three, and mainly around remote communities and how they can prosper, because we're spread out and have a lot of concentrated remote communities whose needs we've seen.

It mainly comes down to two things: we need more support available locally, and we need to expand the opportunities that people have in their communities.

Almost all northern communities have a lack of services, which is well known. There is no stable food supply. There is often no fresh food, or there is fresh food that is unaffordable, so people can't access it. There are not enough health services, mainly mental health support, social services, or programs for early-years intervention for kids to get a good start in life, and people have to travel out for a lot of services.

In most communities the school is the hub. We are often the only physical presence in the community, so we have to provide more than just education. We have to try to provide as many services as we can.

If you combine the lack of services with the high unemployment rates, basically the residents are just trying to survive. They're not on the road to prosperity, but simply trying to survive. We need to remove a lot of these barriers and provide them with assistance. By that I mean there are always provincial-federal barriers, with different agencies doing different things. We need to drop those barriers as much as we can and just focus on helping people and providing opportunity.

A success story right now is the demonstration program currently running in the community of Sandy Bay, a family resource centre. There are also two other demonstration sites, one here in Regina and one in Yorkton. In all of the communities, they're very well received and well utilized. Sandy Bay, Regina, and Yorkton are very different communities, but basically the resource centre is a place where young families can come to get a wide variety of services. They can take parenting classes, and they can go to activities with their kids. In Sandy Bay they bring in fresh food. They have a program called the Good Food Box and they bring in fresh food to the community for a fair price. There are no barriers—anybody can come.

I've also provided information on the Sandy Bay resource centre. Basically in Sandy Bay, 60% of the community has registered and is participating in this place. It's a model that works, so everything is in one place and if you could expand the services available there, things like.... You can't just parachute services in, because people don't trust people who come from the outside. You need to have a physical presence there. There have been so many programs that start and then end, start and end, that people are leery of participants from elsewhere. But this program has worked very well.

The problem is that we need to find a way to sustain this model. Currently it's funded through the Kids First program, which I believe is federally funded. The federal government gives money to the province. I'm not sure about this program, but there is no sustainable funding for the resource centre right now.

The other thing is opportunity. In many of our communities there are good jobs. There are jobs in the schools. We need to find a way to have locals fill these jobs, because right now.... The school is always going to be there. It's stable employment. We need to bring training to the community.

Currently in La Loche they've started a DTEP program, a Dene teacher education program. They're going to teach local people in La Loche to be teachers, who will then go into our schools and local people will be taught by local people.

In a lot of our communities currently, we have to bring in teachers from Ontario and from the east, probably 30 or 40 teachers a year, who we bring in from out-of-province. They stay for a year or two and then they're gone, so there is no stability for the students and they don't see those role models who they can look up to and know that they could also become a teacher or go into nursing or social work.

Another program is the northern teacher education program. This is a teacher education program that has been running for 40 years in La Ronge. Over the years they have probably had 100 to 200 teachers teaching in the north in both federal and provincial schools. Currently, that program is under review. They want to attach that funding to another organization so they can save some administrative costs, but we just need to make sure that the program keeps running as is, because it's been a success.

Mainly it's about providing, as much as we can, training in the community so people can stay there, because when they go out, they have to move their whole family to a city, and the training success rate just isn't great. If we, as much as we can, have local training, that would allow people to step up and we'll start to see the benefits of having local people in those important positions.

Thank you for the opportunity today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Harrington. What are you north of?

[Tom Harrington]

Where do we cover? Basically it's from just north of Waskesiu all the way up. There's also Meadow Lake, which is a bit further north.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, thank you.

From All Nations Hope Network, we have Ms. Poitras.

Go ahead, Margaret.

[Margaret Poitras, Chief Executive Officer, All Nations Hope Network]

I will greet you in four languages.

Tansi, Cree; aaniin, Saulteaux; tanshi, Michif; bonjour, French.

[Witness speaks in Cree]

Thank you, Creator, for this day.

First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the land and the indigenous people of the land. My spirit name is Okisewâtisiw nôtinikêwiyiniw iskwew, which means kind-hearted warrior woman.

Today I will speak about pimâtisiwin—life. As a Cree grandmother, I hold much responsibility for my children, my grandchildren, and the future generations. I want to leave good footprints for them to follow and to pave the way forward in a good way, just as my ancestors have.

The resiliency of the indigenous peoples of this land is evidenced by the fact that we are still here. We are continuing to remember who we are, as the first peoples of the land, and to understand the impact that colonization and residential schools have had on many nations.

All Nations Hope Network is a non-profit corporation incorporated under the Province of Saskatchewan as a charitable organization. The network strives to promote spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, and social well-being for the people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. The organization respects diversity, equity, and equal partnership. The network is an inclusive service provider, and it offers holistic perspectives that incorporate different genders, ages, nations, and life experiences.

The vision was created in 1996 and incorporated in 2004. Since the beginning, the foundation has been based on indigenous ways and knowledge. Living documents over the years have identified the importance of keeping the tradition and teaching life as we move forward in working with the indigenous peoples of Saskatchewan.

Today the House of Commons is creating a living document that will bring pimâtisiwin—life—to indigenous peoples of the land called Canada. The network is leading with an indigenous perspective incorporating indigenous languages, ceremonies of healing and celebration, medicines, teachings, dances, songs, drumming, arts, and indigenous science. The engagement and involvement of first nations and Métis elders promotes ownership among indigenous peoples. We envision healthy individuals and communities where the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being of indigenous people is met, and where they are meaningfully involved in decision-making processes that affect their lives.

The network has assisted in the creation of, and will continue to support, the Saskatchewan Indigenous Council on HIV and AIDS, which has been instrumental in developing, releasing, and implementing the Saskatchewan indigenous strategy on HIV and AIDS that was released December 1, 2014. The council consists of many experts and experienced members from across Saskatchewan. The council has engaged and consulted with many groups in Saskatchewan and on many health and social issues related to HIV and AIDS. The council envisions indigenous people exercising their inherent right to determine their holistic health. The mission is to develop, promote, and implement action on prevention, care, treatment, and support to lower the impact of HIV and AIDS and other related issues such as hepatitis C, sexually transmitted diseases, mental health, and comorbidities from HIV and AIDS experienced by indigenous people.

We value adaptability, functionality, and sustainability as part of life and being. In 2011 the network, in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Regina Qu'Appelle Region, conducted a behavioural and biological survey to determine the prevalence of HIV and associated infections, behaviours, and social demographic factors among the aboriginal population in Regina. The A-track system recognized that aboriginal peoples shared control over the data. It also reflected aboriginal customs and was based on the tenets of mutual respect between all stakeholders, recognition of shared responsibilities, aboriginal community involvement, and utilization of local existing expertise.

A strong relationship—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Could I get you to slow down a little because the people in the translation booth are having trouble keeping up.

[Margaret Poitras]

I just wanted to make sure I could get all of my vision in for today. Thank you.

There was a strong relationship between the cumulative effects of historical trauma and current trauma, including sexual abuse and higher incidence of HIV infection. Among the 1,045 participants who provided a blood sample for testing, 5.2% were HIV 0 positive, and 55.8% of these were aware of their HIV status. At least half do not know their status.

Aboriginal people are disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidermic in Canada. The findings from the A-track pilot survey can be used to inform and evaluate prevention and treatment services for HIV and other related infections among aboriginal people. The lessons learned from the pilot survey could also be used to guide the possible implementation of another A-track survey in another urban or reserve location in Canada.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its 94 calls to action in 2015. This living document speaks to pimâtisiwin for indigenous people in Canada. The network has been involved in many of these calls over the past 15 years. In its summary report released earlier this year, the commission published 94 calls to action urging federal, provincial, territorial, and aboriginal governments to work together to change policies and programs in a concerted effort to repair the harm caused by residential schools and to move forward with reconciliation. Indigenous peoples have solutions for what we are faced with today in Canada. It is time to work together in unity to begin the healing and the restoration of indigenous peoples across the nation.

Nation-to-nation building is important in the way forward for wellness and healing. We do not want any more more Band-Aid solutions for the people. It's time to dig deep within indigenous people to seek, through indigenous ways, knowledge, ceremonies, language, and science. Indigenous knowledge keepers speak about the great mystery. This is a way forward for the indigenous people of Turtle Island. We are spiritual people. We understand the way forward is through kinship with all.

Hai Hai.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much.

Turning to Mr. Korneychuk, just for the information of members, he was going to present tomorrow in Winnipeg, but he is here today.

Go ahead, Kyle.

[Kyle Korneychuk, Spokesperson, Canadian Wheat Board Alliance]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to speak.

The Canadian Wheat Board Alliance is a voluntary prairie-wide organization of grain farmers who recognize the value of collective marketing, the independent and impartial quality assurance provided by the Canadian Grain Commission, and the importance of public plant breeding.

Prairie farmers export approximately 70% of their annual production to the global market. In the absence of the single-desk Wheat Board, access to that global market is now controlled by four giant grain companies called the ABCD group: Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus. Freedom to market grain is myth. You either work through the four companies or you don't sell your grain. It's that simple.

Consequently, prairie farmers face several competitive disadvantages. Our average distance to port is 1,524 kilometres through the mountains, while the Australians have an average distance of 280 kilometres, largely downhill to port. This is very similar to the other major grain producers in Argentina and Ukraine. When you talk about market factors you can't change that. That is a disadvantage that we have to gain back in some other area. Prairie farmers no longer have direct access to end-use customers. Prairie farmers have lost their competitive advantage of supplying quality-assured grain. There's no more overseer of the entire system. Every grain company operates independently and information is not shared. Individual prairie farmers have no market power to deal with either the railway or grain company oligarchies.

Before some people start jumping on me, I will point out farmers don't have the right to organize. It was really interesting to hear the mining company lady sitting over there saying that the two largest fertilizer companies can combine to ensure their viability. I really find it indicative of the type of politicians we have in the arena we're working in right now that it's okay for large companies to work together, join up, not be competitive among themselves but when farmers want to do it, it's somehow seen as bad.

Most farmers also feel that the Wheat Board and its assets were unjustly seized from them. To clear the air, a full audit of that seizure needs to be undertaken as soon as possible. In the interim, we would call on the Minister of Agriculture to release the unredacted audit of the final year of operation of the CWB, which the former minister withheld from Parliament.

Your committee has asked what federal actions would assist Canada’s businesses in all regions and sectors to meet their expansion, innovation, and prosperity goals, and thereby contribute to economic growth in the country? We would answer this way: with the end of the single-desk CWB, prairie farmers lost the beneficial ownership of their wheat and barley from the farm gate to the end-use customer. In August 2015, Dr. Richard Gray, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, explained the losses in 2013, 2014, and 2015 by noting that the increase in the basis that farmers lost to the beneficial ownership for their wheat and barley from the farm gate to the end customer amounted to $5.05 billion.

For people who don't understand what the basis is, it is the difference between the futures price of the grain and the price that what farmers get. Some people call it “spillage” or “tuckage” from the grain companies. In the Wheat Board era, it used to be in the $30 to $50 a tonne range. After the Wheat Board was destroyed, it went up as high as $170 to $270 a tonne. That money was extracted from farmers and went to the grain companies. That essentially meant the transfer of more than one-third of the end-use value of wheat and barley from Canadian farmers into the pockets of the international grain trade.

Protein premiums are in addition. If you grow good quality wheat, protein increases and with that increase you usually get an increase in price. The grain is worth more. That disappeared because there was no marketing of that. It was blended out for the grain companies' benefit and not the farmers'.

I'd like to make six recommendations.

First, give priority to funding a single-desk marketing agency for prairie grains. Historically, this type of organization has been shown by many trade challenges to maximize returns to prairie farmers and, consequently, to their communities.

Second, restore full funding to the Canadian Grain Commission to reclaim Canada’s quality advantage. This would provide customers, whether they are the customers of the giant grain companies now marketing prairie grain, or any future marketing board, with objective and impartial quality assurance.

Third, reduce the costs of inspection and handling by re-instating kernel visual distinguishability, or KVD, so buyers can see that they are getting good Canadian quality.

Fourth, the amalgamation of seed and agro-companies creates a clear conflict of interest that must be eliminated if we are to continue our long tradition of producing the highest quality wheat, barley, and other grains that are expected by our international and domestic customers. Therefore, we would recommend that all funding of new seed variety development be undertaken as a partnership between the prairie producers through the Western Grains Research Foundation and a fully funded Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, with all patent rights being held in trust by the crown for the sole benefit of prairie farmers.

Fifth, the continuation of the maximum revenue entitlement for the two railways is crucial to prairie agriculture. The MRE must include any expansion of interswitching distances. This is a really crucial point. The reason it's so crucial has to do with the policy on transportation within this country. I see some new MPs here and I see some older ones, but I don't think either is going to be able to answer this question: could somebody show me where the transportation policy is? There is none. I think that needs to be changed.

Sixth, given the implementation of our first recommendation, we would further recommend that the federal government nationalize the railway and grain facilities at the Port of Churchill to allow prairie farmers in the Churchill catchment area to once again capitalize on its financial advantages for that region. I think that's a crucial point. We now have a corporation that dictates to us, through some financial dealings that I can understand, that farmers in that area must pay an extra $30 a tonne to move their grain out because they decided to close the port because it wasn't beneficial to them. But it's beneficial to me; who represents me, the farmer?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Kyle, could I get you to sum up fairly quickly? We're a minute and a half over the time.

[Kyle Korneychuk]

Sorry. I knew this would happen.

I'll try to use an example. You're probably saying, well, what does all of this have to do with finance? I want to use the example of AgriStability. We have a situation in which the grain coming off this year is fusarium-infected. It's not high-quality grain. Some areas have it and some areas don't. Each grain company is going to operate independently and sell that grain. In some areas the farmers will get nothing for it. In the old system when you had the Canadian Wheat Board, it looked at the entire crop. It could blend out northwest Saskatchewan to southeast Manitoba. That isn't happening now. So what's going to happen is that the entire wheat crop is going to have reduced value. I'm going to take a hit. What does that matter to you? Well when Agri-Food Canada comes and says “hey, we need a few hundred million to fix up the AgriStability, because these farmers are claiming their losses” it's going to affect you directly.

I would like to close by saying that if it's an important economic issue that two fertilizer companies can join to remain viable, I would make the argument to you that Canadian prairie farmers should have the option of working through a collective system to sell their grain so that we can actually compete with other countries.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Kyle.

We will turn to questions. Before we do that, however, we usually have MPs introduce themselves so you know what riding they're from and where they represent. I didn't do that at the beginning of this panel.

Raj, you can start.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

My name is Raj Grewal. I am the member of Parliament for Brampton East. Thank you all for coming here.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I'm Jennifer O'Connell, member of Parliament for Pickering—Uxbridge in Ontario, just outside of Toronto.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I'm Steve MacKinnon for Gatineau, Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm Wayne Easter, the member of Parliament for Malpeque, Prince Edward Island.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I'm Ron Liepert for Calgary Signal Hill.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I am Ziad Aboultaif from Edmonton Manning. It's the northeast Edmonton riding.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'm Erin Weir from Regina—Lewvan. I want to welcome not only the committee but most of the panel to Regina. It's interesting to have people from so many different parts of the province here today.