I'd like to call the meeting to order.
First, I want to thank the minister for being with us. We have a full two hours today, and we certainly appreciate the minister taking the time, along with a good number of his departmental staff, to be here with the committee to talk about the estimates we have before us.
We want to get started and not leave too much time.
With the minister, we have Morris Rosenberg, the deputy minister; and then we have Frank Fedyk, the acting assistant deputy minister of the public health branch. Thank you for being here.
Of course, Dr. David Butler-Jones has been here many times. It's good to have you with us.
Marcel Nouvet is the acting chief financial officer from the chief financial officer branch. And then we have Luc Ladouceur. It's good to have you as well.
We thank you for coming and taking this time, and we look forward to your presentation, as well as a brisk round of questioning on the spending of this department.
With that, we invite the minister to start with his presentation, and then we'll move on to questioning.
I'll lay it out right now that when the minister is here, we have a different timing for the questioning. It's 15 minutes for the official opposition, 10 minutes for the Bloc, 10 minutes for the NDP, and then 10 minutes for the government; and then it's five minutes alternating.
Minister, the floor is yours.