It being 11 a.m., I'll convene the meeting and call it to order.
Colleagues, I have a couple of housekeeping notes. This meeting is in public and it is televised, first of all. Second, as you can see from our witnesses assembled at the table, a number of department officials will be with us today. Because of the sheer number of witnesses we have, we will be forgoing our usual opening statements and going into questions immediately to give all of you more time to ask questions of the officials before you.
Treasury Board and their officials will be with us for the full two hours. We will have one-hour panels initially, followed by a second panel starting at approximately noon. Today we have representatives, in our first panel, besides the Treasury Board, from the Department of Finance, Department of Industry, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Transport, and the National Research Council of Canada. ΒΈ
With that brief introduction, we will now begin with our seven-minute round of questions.
Madam Ratansi, the floor is yours.