We'll call our meeting to order.
I want to welcome all of you here today as we begin our second leg of our journey across the country to study three very important matters.
We are the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We have been mandated to hold hearings on three issues, as I said a moment ago: undocumented workers, Iraqi refugees, and immigration consultants. We're going to be meeting in almost every province between Vancouver and St. John's. We have approximately 52 panels to hear from on these topics. Of course, at the conclusion of our meetings, we will compile a report, with the assistance of our capable officials and analysts, and have that report presented to the House of Commons and to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.
We begin our meetings today here in Edmonton. We have on our first panel the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers. We want to welcome Mr. Jim Gurnett. And we have Yessy Byl and Bill Diachuk.
I think you're very well aware of how the committee operates. You will have an opening statement of roughly seven minutes, and then we'll interact and ask questions or what have you.
So I'll leave it to you.