I will call the meeting to order.
Welcome, colleagues. This is meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
The meeting will last from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the minister, I understand, will be with us for only the first hour. Her officials will be able to remain in the meeting until 7 p.m.
The committee's next meeting will take place this Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., eastern standard time. We have not yet received information about next week's meetings from the whips. As soon as we have that information we will be sending that out to all committee members directly.
I will go over a couple of the quick procedural and housekeeping matters.
We will go to a full complement of questions using the six-minute, five-minute, two and a half minute rule that we've established. That should give us adequate time to get all of the questions in, but we will be suspending, or at least excusing, Minister Murray at 6 p.m. sharp and then going on to a second full round of questions with the witnesses at that time.
I would ask that if you are making a statement or asking a question, you begin and please continue in one official language. I would ask that you do not alternate between French and English because we have had, over time, some technical difficulties when we've switched between the two. If we can do that, I think it would make for an easy facilitation and a much quicker meeting, because we won't have to worry about getting interrupted by our technicians.
With that, colleagues, I think you all know the drill.
Madam Minister, it's good to see you once again. The floor is yours for what I believe will be a five-minute opening statement.
Minister Murray, please go ahead.