Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to call this meeting to order.
Before we start the formal part of the meeting, I just want to advise the committee.
I became chair of this committee in late November, as you all recall, when Minister Miller had to relinquish this seat when he was reappointed to cabinet. I was asked to take on this role on an interim basis. I have a different interpretation of interim, apparently, than the people who asked me, but one thing led to another. I've been here for six months now, but I'm stepping down as chair, effective immediately.
I'm going to turn it over to the clerk in a moment so we can proceed to the election of a new chair, but I just want to say thank you to all of the members of the committee. We've had some interesting discussions and we've had some long discussions, but I can honestly say I've enjoyed almost every single minute. I enjoy working with every single one of you. Although we all share differences at times, it's been a highly functional committee. I just want to say thank you to everybody here, and I appreciate it.
I'm not going anywhere. I'll be sitting over there instead of sitting here. Don't read anything into it.
No, I'll be sitting over there, Andrew. Don't worry.
I just want to say thank you, and I thought, in fairness to Ms. Lapointe, who's here today—we're going to start her bill—we'd do that at the outset, proceed to the election of a chair and then we can jump right in.
The last thing I would like to say is I want to say a huge thanks to the people who sit to my left and to my right, because nobody can sit in this chair and do the job at all without their help and the help of all of the other people in the room.
Thank you very much.