Order.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is meeting 44 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Tuesday, March 20.
Members will be reminded that today's meeting is televised.
We're very pleased to have with us this afternoon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Peter MacKay. This is the minister's fifth appearance before our committee in less than a year. He testified before us four times in 2006: March 30, August 1, September 27, and November 5.
We're pleased to have you back again today.
The minister appears today because we've invited him to come and speak on four main issues and motions that have appeared before this committee: the closing of Canadian consulates; the federal government's efforts to ratify the United Nations covenant on the rights and dignity of people with disabilities; the situation in Afghanistan; and the 2007-08 main estimates.
The minister is accompanied today by his appropriate deputy minister and associate deputy minister: Mr. Edwards and Mr. Mulroney, welcome.
I can assure members that following the minister's opening statement, we can ask questions on all four of those main topics of discussion, those motions that have been brought. There is no requirement that we adhere to the agenda on the notice of meeting. The notice merely lists the topics, with no particular order of precedence.
Finally, we hope at the end of this meeting to go in camera for a very short period of time to discuss a few brief points in regard to our study on democratic development, and also to pass the report that will be brought today from our steering subcommittee. We want to be able to give our table the opportunity to go ahead and call some of those witnesses for next week and the few weeks after.
On behalf of the committee, Minister MacKay, thank you for being so responsive to the invitations to appear before our committee and to provide us with news from Canada's new government.
I will now turn the time over to you. Normally we'd have 15 or 20 minutes for a minister, but we recognize that you have those four points to address, so you just take the time. We're pleased that we have two hours with you today.