I'll do a full update when we're in committee business, but the invitation has been made. We've made contact with his office, and we're working right now on finding a date. I'll give further details on that, but that motion is in the process of being moved on and a meeting scheduled. I'll have a more thorough update when the time comes.
For those of our witnesses who are online, welcome. I know that some of you have been with us before. Just as a reminder, you'll need to mute and unmute yourselves. We don't have the ability to control that easily from here, so we'll get you to do that. You have your choice of language—floor, English or French—and you can control that yourselves. Comments should be addressed through the chair, and screenshots or photos are not permitted now that we're in session.
In accordance with our routine motion, I'm informing the committee that all remote participants have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.
Thank you to the witnesses for making time to do that. It's an important part of our procedures.
I'd like to welcome our three witnesses. We had hoped for a fourth, but there was a last-minute issue.
We have, much to our pleasure, Andrew Leach, associate professor, University of Alberta; Dale Friesen, senior vice-president, corporate affairs, and chief government affairs officer, ATCO; and finally, from the Indian Resource Council Inc., Stephen Buffalo, president and chief executive officer.
Thank you to each of you for taking the time to be with us today.
We're going to go through the opening statements. Each of you will have five minutes. I have a clock with me, and you can see me on screen. I'll give a yellow 30-second warning. When the time is up, I'll give you the red card. Don't stop mid-sentence, but do wind up your thought. We'll use the same system when we get into questions and answers, just to keep the flow going.
We'll have about an hour. Then we'll suspend and move into a closed meeting, and that's how the morning is going to go.
First up, why don't we start with Mr. Leach?
If you're ready to go, I have five minutes on the clock and the floor is yours.