Good morning, colleagues.
This is meeting 43 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Tuesday, December 1, 2009. Our orders of the day include a return to our committee's study of Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries.
On our first panel today we have, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Grant Manuge, the director general of the trade commissioner service, operations; Mr. James Lambert, the director general for Latin America and the Caribbean; Sabine Nölke, director of the United Nations human rights and economic law division; and Ms. Sara Wilshaw, the director of trade commissioner service support.
We welcome you to our committee this morning. I'll invite you to make your opening statements, and then we'll proceed into the first and second round of questioning.
I want to remind the members of our committee today that we are going to try to adjourn this by 10:15 to 10:30, somewhere in there, and move into steering committee. We'll really be on the time clock today in terms of the seven-minute rounds for questions and answers.
Mr. Manuge.