Good afternoon, committee members and Minister. Thanks to all of you for being here today. This is our first full meeting after last week's meeting, when we adopted some procedural motions and set up the structure of the committee.
Minister, first let me say how grateful we all are that you are able to make the time to be available. We had a discussion at our first meeting last week as to how we might set our course. It was decided unanimously in this group, and with a spirit of co-operation, which I anticipate will continue for the duration of this committee, that if you were available, we would all enjoy having you attend. We know how busy you are. Thank you very much for making the time to be here, especially on short notice.
We know how important it is for ministers to be involved with parliamentary committees, so this is a great way for us to start.
I understand we have you for an hour. One thing we're going to do today after you've left is to spend some time charting our course for the future. Your being here today is going to help us a great deal in getting that going. Thank you again.
Committee members, we're joined today not only by Minister Carr but also by Mr. Bob Hamilton from the department, who will be here to help us out as well. Thank you, sir, for attending as well.
Today we're going to talk about the mandate letter and the issues that arise from it. As some or hopefully all of you are aware, there were some estimates tabled in the House late last week. I understand there will be some tomorrow as well at 10 o'clock.
The minister has kindly agreed to come back on a date in March, which I believe we've tentatively set as March 21, to discuss the estimates at that time. Rather than deal with that today, we're going to focus on the issues arising out of the mandate letter, particularly since we're limited in the amount of time we have.
Again, thank you, Minister, for coming today. We're going to start with introductory remarks from Minister Carr for 10 minutes. Then we're going to follow that with questions, using the procedure we adopted last Wednesday at our meeting.
Minister, I'll turn the floor over to you.