Good morning. Welcome to meeting 40 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
Today, the committee is studying order-in-council appointments to the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments.
With us today are three provincial members of the advisory board. We have Chief Brian Francis, from Prince Edward Island; Jeannette Arsenault, from Prince Edward Island; and by video conference, Vikram Vij, from British Columbia.
The meeting is being held pursuant to Standing Order 111, which states:
The committee, if it should call an appointee or nominee to appear pursuant to section (1) of this Standing Order, shall examine the qualifications and competence of the appointee or nominee to perform the duties of the post to which he or she has been appointed or nominated.
I would remind the committee to be mindful of this in their questioning of the witnesses. Members can also refer to pages 1011 and 1013 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice for additional guidance.
The committee members know this, but just for the witnesses, we're only mandated to ask you about your qualifications. If someone asks you something else, I may allow them to ask it, but you don't have to answer it if you don't want to.
Quickly, for the record, for committee members, and you can take it back to any committee members who aren't here, there are two things. One is—and I don't want to discuss it now—there's a Kenyan delegation that will be asking for time with procedure and house affairs in the near future. I'm going to suggest we do the same as we did with Austria, and have a meeting that's not in our regular time slot, which would use up our time. If anyone objects to that, get back to me later.
Second, I would just like a motion from the committee to approve the expenses for our witnesses who have travelled, which are roughly.... How much is it?