I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 26 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, the committee will resume its study of the review of the employment insurance program.
I'd like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussion with five minutes of opening remarks, followed by questions. We're pleased to have with us here today the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. From the Department of Employment and Social Development, we have Graham Flack, deputy minister; Lori MacDonald, senior associate deputy minister and chief operating officer for Service Canada; Cliff Groen, senior assistant deputy minister, benefits and integrated services branch of Service Canada; and Elisha Ram, associate assistant deputy minister, skills and employment branch.
I'm going to dispense with all of the other preliminaries because we have an experienced group of parliamentarians here to pose the questions and an experienced group of witnesses to answer them. We'll get right to it.
Welcome back to the committee, Minister Qualtrough. You have the floor for five minutes.