Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), our briefing on the deployment of Canadian Armed Forces personnel in Iraq will begin.
I want to introduce our witnesses who are at the table.
We have with us today, Peter Boehm, who is the associate deputy minister of Foreign Affairs. Welcome, sir, we're glad to have you here.
Sitting next to him, we have Ambassador Andrew Bennett, who is the ambassador of the office for religious freedom. Welcome, sir.
We also have Minister Baird, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We have Minister Nicholson, the Minister of Defence.
We also have Thomas Lawson, who is the Chief of the Defence Staff.
We are going to start with the opening statements. We will start with Mr. Nicholson. Then we'll move to Mr. Baird and finish up with Mr. Bennett. Then we'll go around the room over the next two hours to ask questions to fill in some of the blanks based on the testimony.
Minister Nicholson, I'm going to turn the floor over to you now. The floor is yours, sir.