Welcome back to the second round of witnesses in our continuing study of the AbitibiBowater settlement. In this second round, we have Jean-Michel Laurin, vice-president of global business policy for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters. Welcome back, Monsieur Laurin. It's good to have you here.
We also have David Coles, who is the president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Welcome, Mr. Coles, and thank you for being here.
As individuals, we have replacement witnesses, for a reason I'm not entirely sure of. I want to thank Michael Woods, a partner of the trade and competition group from Heenan Blaikie, and Alexandra Logvin, who is a lawyer in the litigation group for Heenan Blaikie, for coming at the last minute.
I understand that this was somewhat thrust upon you, and I appreciate your taking the time to come on short notice to fill in here. I'll let you explain that further as you begin to speak. I don't know if you have an opening statement prepared, but I will ask our other witnesses in this case to try to be brief, because we only have about 45 minutes to go.
We will begin with opening statements. I'm going to ask again that we might condense them a bit in order to get into questions. We'll start with our witnesses now.
First we have Mr. Coles, the president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
Please go ahead, Mr. Coles.