I am not going to keep you waiting any longer. We have a couple of committee members who are missing in action. They are probably out having a look at our beautiful city. I want to welcome all of you here today as we continue our cross-country tour, and bring it to an end, actually.
We've been meeting in all the provinces. We're the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Citizenship and Immigration, and we've been mandated to look at three very important items: temporary and foreign workers, immigration consultants, and the Iraqi refugee problem.
As I said, we've met in all the provinces except P.E.I. This is our ninth province in 12 days. We'll have heard from about 52 panels after we finish up today, and we have our analysts and officials with us.
The committee, at the end of it all, will do a report that we will present to the House of Commons. The report will be based upon what we've heard from the various panels as we've travelled between British Columbia and here.
Our committee is an all-party committee with representation from all parties. We have about five or six people travelling from the House of Commons, and we have heard some very interesting comments and some very interesting presentations.
We generally give each presenter about seven minutes to make a presentation to us, and then we turn it over to members of the committee who might wish to have some interaction, put some questions or make some comments.
Today I want to welcome, first of all, from the West End Baptist Church, Pastor Gordon Sutherland. Welcome, Pastor. From Fish Food and Allied Workers, Greg Pretty, industrial director; from the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, Lana Payne, first vice-president; and as an individual, David Wade, who represents the building trades of the province.
We will begin with you, Pastor, if you don't mind.