Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, witnesses and guests.
I hereby call to order this 8th meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.
On today's agenda, pursuant to our order of reference of Monday, March 29, 2010, we are considering Bill C-3, an Act to promote gender equity in Indian registration by responding to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia Decision in McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs).
Ladies and gentlemen, this is our second meeting with respect to this bill. I should say, members, we will be having three one-hour instalments this afternoon to take us until 6:30.
For the first hour we welcome Ms. McIvor, who has been quite involved in this issue for a long period of time and is the source of the claim and the issue we have before us. We welcome Ms. McIvor.
In the course of our questioning for each of the three hours we will go for the normal ten-minute presentation followed by questions from members. We'll stay with the usual seven-minutes in the first round and five minutes in the subsequent rounds of questions.
With that, we'll begin.
Ms. McIvor, it's great to have you here. You have the floor for ten minutes.