I call this meeting to order.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming forward. This is a very important issue, and we may want to make a more significant study of childhood obesity. The committee is trying to be teased into a potential study on this, drugs, or perhaps wait times.
I'm pleased that you could all be here to share this with us and maybe tease us along in that venture. I want to thank you for coming. It's important for us to be able to hear what you have to say on this important subject.
We'll just fix the translation before we get going.
She says it's working, Réal. Is it your birthday, or is your birthday coming soon? It was in April; it's passed.
This is a standing joke. Réal Ménard was a member of our committee for many years, and he made quite a display about his birthday all the time. He made sure we never missed it. So when he asked to speak, that was the first thing that came to mind. He's 102 and he's looking no more than 29.
Let's start with our witnesses. I want to thank you all for coming. We're going to start with Diane Finegood from the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes. Please start. Then we will change our schedule and go next to Statistics Canada and Ms. Shields.