Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry some of us were held up by transportation means here. Thank you for coming in this morning and changing your schedules to come in an hour early to accommodate the minister, who will be here at 12 noon today.
This is part of our study on the manufacturing sector. It's obviously our first study in this Parliament and this committee. Hopefully we will be able to do as much as we can by June. We'll have the meeting this morning for an hour and 45 minutes. I would ask each organization to limit themselves to a maximum of a 10-minute opening presentation--shorter if at all possible--to allow time for the members to pose questions and for you to present your answers.
I'll present all of the witnesses here today, and then I'll ask the first witnesses to start.
We have Mr. Sharma, who is the chief economist and executive director in Ontario of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.
From the Canadian Apparel Federation we have Eve Grenier, president, and Bob Kirke, executive director. Eve is also representing the Apparel Manufacturers Institute of Quebec. I guess she's wearing both hats today.
From the Canadian Textiles Institute we have Harvey Penner, the chairman, and Elizabeth Siwicki, the president.
We'll start with the Canadian Plastics Industry Association for up to ten minutes. Then we can have the two apparel federations. If they could present jointly, that would help. Then we'll have the Canadian Textiles Institute.
Mr. Sharma, welcome.