Good afternoon, colleagues. It's good to see all of you again virtually.
I will call this meeting to order. It is meeting number 13 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
I have a couple of notes before we begin. In the second hour of today's meeting, we will have only one witness, who is a representative from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, so I would like to take 15 minutes at the end of that meeting to discuss future business and, more precisely, future witnesses.
For the purposes of this meeting, we have representatives from the minister's office. Minister Hajdu is here, as are representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
We will begin by asking the minister to give a short statement of no more than five minutes, followed by our normal round of questions. Since we're starting on time today, which is somewhat unusual, we will go to our normal rotation for the first round of six minutes, five minutes and then two and a half minutes.
For the minister and all witnesses, I would ask that when you speak you do so in one language, as opposed to alternating between French and English. Doing this will assist our technicians greatly. In other words, if you start speaking in English with your statement, if you could maintain that language for the entire duration of your statement or question, I would appreciate it greatly.
With those few words, I would like to invite Minister Hajdu to give her opening statement.
Minister, the floor is yours.