Respected colleagues, welcome to the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
Pursuant to the orders of reference from the House on April 20, 2020 and September 30, 2020, as well as the order of reference of the committee on October 13, 2020, the committee is meeting to resume consideration of votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, L25 and L30 under Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, vote 1 under International Development Research Centre, and vote 1 under International Joint Commission, Canadian Section.
To ensure an orderly meeting, as always, I would encourage participants to mute their microphones when they are not speaking, and address comments through the chair. When you have 30 seconds remaining in your questioning time, I will signal you with this yellow sheet of paper. Interpretation is available through the globe icon at the bottom of your screen.
I would now like to introduce the witness panel.
We first have the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Welcome, Minister.
He is joined by members of this team, including Marta Morgan, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Anick Ouellette, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Planning, Finance and Information Technology.
We are also joined by Elissa Golberg, assistant deputy minister, strategic policy; and Bruce Christie, associate assistant deputy minister, trade policy and negotiations.
Minister, I give you the floor for your opening remarks.