Dear colleagues, welcome to the fourth meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
Pursuant to the order of reference of October 22, 2020, the committee is undertaking a briefing on the situation in Belarus.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the order of the House adopted on September23, 2020. Proceedings will be published on the House of Commons website.
For information purposes, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.
Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of “floor”, “English” or “French”.
Members attending in person must conduct themselves as they would normally if all committee members were meeting in person in a committee room and keep in mind that the Board of Internal Economy's guidelines for wearing masks, as well as health protocols.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you're on video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. When you have 30 seconds remaining in your questioning time, I will signal you by holding up this yellow sheet of paper. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.
I would now like to welcome our witnesses.
We have David Sproule, senior Arctic official and director general, Arctic, Eurasian and European affairs.
We also have Alison Grant, director of Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
Mr. Sproule, we will start by giving you the floor for seven minutes of opening remarks.
Please go ahead, sir.