Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome you here today as we continue our cross-country tour.
We're the immigration committee of House of Commons. We've been mandated by the House of Commons to hold meetings on three very important matters: temporary and undocumented workers, immigration consultants, and Iraqi refugees. We're going to meet in almost all provinces—nine provinces, I believe. We've already met in five provinces. We will finish up in mid-April in St. John's, Newfoundland.
We will have heard approximately 52 panels of representatives, soliciting their views on these very important matters. At the conclusion of our meetings, of course, we will have our committee and our officials compile a report based on the evidence you've given on these matters, and we will have the report presented to the House of Commons.
Our committee has representatives from all parties on it. Some of our people are a bit tardy this morning. We have two or three more who'll be along shortly.
We will now begin hearing from our witnesses. First, we have, from the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, Mr. John Ryan, who is the chair, as well as Rivka Augenfeld and Imran Qayyum.
Thank you for being here.
I think you're aware of how our committee works. We give you opening statements, and of course, the committee members may want to interact and question later on. But you do have an hour, and we invite you to begin in whatever way you wish.