Thank you very much to all three of you. Madame Audette, Madam Goodwin, and Madame Dumont-Smith, we appreciate your comments this morning.
Before we start with questions, I want to acknowledge once again the special contribution you're making. I think, frankly, that we're off to a great start in that partnership with you as expert witnesses.
Madame Audette, you mentioned the word “witness”, and if I could I will explain how I see it. I think sometimes as parliamentarians we take comfort in the structures we know and the ones we're most familiar with, so for us, witnesses are the people who sit at that end of the table. It's the word we use for your role at this meeting, but, as I mentioned earlier, it's as an expert witness. You are the only witnesses we'll be hearing from at the beginning of each theme, so we believe we've singled out the contribution that you will be making because your advice is so valuable to us. You've already given us a lot to chew on, and we appreciate that.
I think I speak for every member of Parliament in the room when I say that I believe the committee has made the right decision in having you here as experts to give us some guidance. We welcome that participation and we thank you again for being here.
We're ready to start with some questions, if you don't mind. We'll start with Ms. Crowder for seven minutes.