Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 56 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, of Thursday, February 17, 2011.
Today we are commencing a study of the expansion of penitentiaries. We will hear from the Minister of Public Safety and from Correctional Services of Canada a little later on this morning, but in our first hour we will hear from the Library of Parliament.
We welcome Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. He is accompanied by his officials, including Mostafa Askari, assistant parliamentary budget officer for economic and fiscal analysis; Sahir Khan, assistant parliamentary budget officer for expenditure and revenue analysis; also, I believe Ashutosh Rajekar, financial advisor, will be here as well.
Our committee wants to thank you for appearing before us today. I understand that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has some opening statements. Then we will proceed into a round or two rounds of questioning.
Mr. Page, welcome. The floor is yours.