I'll recognize your point of order immediately after I introduce the witnesses.
Appearing before us today we have, from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Michael Ferguson, the Auditor General of Canada; and Richard Domingue, principal.
From the Department of Finance, we welcome Richard Botham, assistant deputy minister of the economic development and corporate finance branch. It's good to see you again.
From the Department of Industry, we have Christopher Padfield, director general, small business branch, of small business, tourism and marketplace services.
From the Business Development Bank of Canada, we have Jérôme Nycz, executive vice president of BDC Capital; and Neal Hill, vice president of market development, BDC Capital.
I understand that we have an opening statement from the assistant deputy minister, Richard Botham. We'll begin with the Auditor General of Canada's opening statement.
Before we begin, I would like to advise everyone that we have with us today a six-member delegation of international auditors currently undergoing training with the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation. These auditors are from Vietnam, Tanzania, Ghana, and Cameroon. We will have an opportunity to meet with this delegation and our international colleagues at the end of today's meeting.
I can advise our guest auditors that the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation has also been very generous in sharing advice and helping our committee train for our work early in the 42nd Parliament.
As your chair, I want to alert MPs and witnesses, who will want to be mindful during today's meetings that we have these international auditors here and we would really like it if they all thought we got along all the time. It is good to have them here and we look forward to the opportunity of meeting them after.
With that, I will now turn to the point of order from Mr. Christopherson.