Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. This is meeting number five. It is Tuesday, October 25, 2011. The meeting is televised today. It involves, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), study of the immigration application backlogs in light of the action plan for faster immigration.
We have three witnesses with us this morning. We have Patrick Grady, an economist at Global Economics Ltd.; Herbert G. Grubel, a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute; and Joseph Ben-Ami, the president of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.
Good morning to you all.
You each have up to eight minutes to make a presentation, and then the committee members will ask questions of you.
We will start off with Mr. Grady. Thank you for coming, sir.