Good morning, and welcome to our meeting.
As you're aware, we're the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration of the House of Commons. We've been mandated to hold hearings on three very important matters: temporary and undocumented workers, immigration consultants, and Iraqi refugees.
We're going to meet in just about all the provinces. We have 52 panels that will be appearing before us. Already we've met in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Moose Jaw, and here we are now in Winnipeg.
Our committee is made up of representatives from all parties in the House of Commons, and we have a couple of people who can't be here today because they had duties back in the House of Commons.
However, we will be hearing testimony from witnesses all across the country on these matters, and at the end of it all, we will compile a report and make recommendations to the minister and to the House of Commons based on what we're hearing.
I'd like to welcome our witnesses here this morning. We have, from the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, Martin M. Dolin, who is the executive director; and from the Iraqi International Initiative, Hani Al-Ubeady.
The way we work it, of course, is that you have an opportunity to make an opening statement. So I'll leave it to you.