Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
This is meeting number 25 and we're operating under Standing Order 108(3)(g) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, September 30, 2010--chapter 4, “Sustaining Development in the Northwest Territories”, of the spring 2010 report. That's the spring report of the Auditor General, not the one that's already been advertised for two weeks from now.
We're pleased today to have with us, from the Office of the Auditor General, Madam Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General; Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, all under that same department; and Mr. Frank Barrett.
Welcome, Madam and colleagues.
From the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, we have Michael Wernick, deputy minister; and Patrick Borbey, assistant deputy minister of northern affairs. From the Department of the Environment, we have Mr. Paul Boothe, deputy minister. From the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, we have Ian Shugart, deputy minister. And from the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, we have Madame Nicole Jauvin, deputy minister and president.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us. We'll get to our presentations, which, as per practice, are five minutes per each of the presenters. Although, Madam Fraser, it's not five minutes for each of you. It's five minutes for you and five minutes for the next, etc.
I'm pleased to be at this particular meeting because we're going to be talking about a very important region of the country, the north, often forgotten by so many people, not very well known by the rest. As one of my staffers pointed out to me, given the Auditor General's report, we now discover that there are actually more people, for the first time in history, than there are caribou, as an indicator of so many other things that are happening in terms of economic activity, environmental impact, and the human resources development side of the indigenous populations.
I know you're going to be talking about all of those--not specifically you, Madam Fraser, but the others together, and we look forward to your presentations.
Without further ado,
Ms. Fraser, you have the floor.