I call the meeting to order.
This is our fifth meeting of the Standing Committee on Health, and we have some very distinguished witnesses today. Just briefly, we have the Honourable Dr. Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, and Simon Kennedy, who is a career civil servant who has held important positions with the Privy Council and the Department of International Trade. He has also worked in public relations at Mount Saint Vincent University.
We have Siddika Mithani, who's on her first day on the job here today, so we're going to be especially hard on her. She is president of the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Congratulations on your new position.
We also have Dr. Gregory Taylor, chief public health officer for Canada; Alain Beaudet, president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; and Bruce Archibald, president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I hope I didn't miss anybody.
There are more of you than there are of us. Anyway, I certainly welcome you.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying the mandate of the Minister of Health. Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), we are also dealing with the main estimates for 2016-17. I'm not going to detail those, but for now I'm going to call vote 1 under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Minister Philpott, welcome to you and your officials. You have the floor.