Colleagues, let's bring our meeting to order.
We have limited time today. I would like to remind members that at the end of this meeting there are two things that I wish to happen. One is that we need to leave some time for committee business, some of which has carried over from the last meeting and some of which is just standard committee business. As well, colleagues, I want to remind you that Mary Dawson, the Conflict of Interest Code and Ethics Commissioner, has asked to meet with the committee. She will be bringing some of her colleagues, and we will leave time for that at the end. Depending on how the meeting goes, we may suspend to do that informal meeting and then resume the meeting, or perhaps the meeting will have found its natural conclusion and we will conclude the meeting and then meet with Ms. Dawson. We'll see how that goes.
I want to remind members that pursuant to the committee's order of reference of Thursday, November 7, 2007, the committee is here to study Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act.
Colleagues, again we are dealing with three different bills at the same time, so I just want to refresh your memory that today we are on Bill C-16.
I want to introduce our witnesses, whom I appreciate very much attending without handcuffs or warrants. We do appreciate the fact that you have made, in Mr. Docherty's case, a second attempt to attend the meeting. The dean of arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, colleagues, you might remember, was scheduled for last week, but the weather did not allow for that. So we certainly appreciate your second attempt, and it appears to be quite successful.
Mr. Pammett, we appreciate your being here as well. Mr. Pammett is with the political sciences department at Carleton University, where my son used to attend. So it's an absolute privilege to have you here.
I will allow our witnesses a couple of minutes to introduce themselves to the members of the committee. If you have an opening statement, you're certainly welcome to do that, and then, colleagues, we will open it to the usual round of questions, seven minutes for the first round, and we'll see how we do with that.
Perhaps we can start, Mr. Docherty, with you, please.