Good afternoon everyone.
Welcome to the 61st meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding a study on broadband and Internet access across Canada. We have the Department of Industry before us for the first hour. The second hour, colleagues, will be with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We'll shorten that second one to 45 minutes so we can discuss a path forward, considering the changes that have happened due to the budget this week.
Also, our witnesses before us have asked for a little bit of extended time for the presentations, which they feel will be much more fulsome for our information and for our capability to be able to ask good questions.
We have Alain Beaudoin, who is the acting assistant deputy minister of spectrum information technologies and telecommunications. We also have Director General Chris Padfield from the digital policy branch, and Director General Pamela Miller of the telecommunications policy branch.
I believe it's you, Monsieur Beaudoin, who's going to be giving the opening remarks. After you're done we'll go to the alternating questions.
Please proceed.