Bonjour, mes collègues. Good morning. Welcome to the 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. It's Thursday, March 1.
Today we are going to have a number of testimonials. A number of witnesses will appear and give us briefings on the issue of cluster bombs. We passed a motion--unanimously, I believe--dealing with cluster bombs a number of weeks ago, so we are very thankful to the group for appearing here today.
In our first hour we'll hear from Steve Goose, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Arms Division; Paul Hannon, the executive director of Mines Action Canada; Simon Conway, director of Landmine Action in the U.K.; and Isabelle Daoust, an international humanitarian law advisor from the Canadian Red Cross.
We look forward to your testimony as this committee meets. We will give you the opportunity for opening comments; try to keep them close to 10 minutes. Then we'll proceed into a round of questioning.
We'll begin with Mr. Hannon.