I'd like to thank you all for the wonderful opportunity to be your chair again. I can't seem to lose an election at this committee.
Many of you are friends and have served on this committee in the past, and there are some newcomers. I would like to start just as we may have started at the beginning of the last House, and as I'm sure this committee has started many other times, by explaining that this committee is the granddaddy of all the committees. It is the one that strikes the others. It is always run by consensus, and has in the past always worked well by consensus. I hope that, with the will of the members, that's how it will run again. I will be here to join in your conversations rather than to rule. I hope partisanship stays outside in the hall and that in here we will be people all willing to make this Parliament and Canada a little better place.
Thank you.
Why don't we do this? In the first meeting last time, with the consent of the committee....
I'm sorry, Mr. Guimond.