Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I will begin by extending a very warm welcome to our witnesses who have travelled to come meet with the committee members this afternoon. I thank them for that. By the way, this is our first meeting with witnesses since the beginning of this Parliament. That is very important for us.
Before I give you the floor, I am going to remind the committee members that the chief statistician will appear before us next Thursday.
Moreover, I sent you a letter, which you have all received. In that letter, the head of the library tells us how amazing Ms. Lecomte, our committee's analyst, is. I want to take this opportunity to officially announce that, as of today, our second analyst is Laura Blackmore. She will be working with us here.
Without further ado, we will go to our guests.
I assume that a number of you, if not all of you, are used to appearing before the committee. You each have 10 minutes to make your presentation. That will be followed by a round of questions.
I want to let you know that our experts will ensure that the microphone lights up as soon as you start talking. So you don't have to worry about that.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(f), we are conducting a study on the enumeration of rights holders. Our witnesses are: Sheila Risbud, from the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta; Marie-Pierre Lavoie, president of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique; Denis Chartrand and Valérie Morand, from the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones; and Geoffrey Chambers and Sylvis Martin-Laforge, from the Quebec Community Groups Network.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin.
I invite Ms. Risbud to go ahead with her presentation.