Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am happy to have the opportunity to discuss our role and mandate with you today. Before I start my presentation, I would like to say a few words about our independence.
Our office has been around since 1878. It started out as part of government. There have been several changes in our mandate over the years, some of which served to strengthen our independence. Today, we have the independence that we need and this independence is key to maintaining our credibility. I will come back to the subject later on.
The independence of our office is one of the key messages in my presentation today.
As I said, I have a deck today, Mr. Chairman. There are 21 slides in the deck. I believe you have it in front of you. I will try to go through this deck as quickly as possible to allow as much time as possible for questions and discussions.
I have worked with the office for quite some time so I can talk about the work of the office for a long time. If I take too long, Mr. Chairman, I would ask you to hurry me along.