Well, having chaired this committee for the last two years, I can proudly say that I have never felt that I've been under any thumb, so I can reassure the member that we remain and will remain an independent body.
I believe we have another point of order.
No? We're passing on that?
Thank you very much.
Without further ado, I'd like to introduce the panel we have before us.
From the Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, we have Nicole Laveau, representative, coming to us via Quebec.
From Surrey, British Columbia, via video conference we have, from Fraser Health, Irene Sheppard, executive director.
Coming to us as an individual we have Michael Veall, professor in the department of economics at McMaster University. Welcome, sir.
Also we have Jane Rooney of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Welcome.
We have a number of people from Stats Canada today: Pamela Best, Andrew Heisz, and Sébastien Larochelle-Côté. Thank you all for being here.
We're going to get started with seven-minute presentations. We're going to begin with Nicole, who is coming to us from Quebec.
The next seven minutes are yours, Nicole.