I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 102 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), the committee is meeting to discuss a request to undertake a study of the recent comments from the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on the funding for road projects.
Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders, and members are thus attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
Although this meeting is equipped with a sophisticated audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too closely to a microphone. We therefore ask you all to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when your microphone or your neighbour's microphone is turned on. In order to prevent incidents and to safeguard the hearing health of our interpreters, I invite all participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and to avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they are not in use.
When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute. Given that the majority of members are joining us virtually today, I will kindly ask that you use the “raise hand” function when you would like to speak. The clerk and I will make note of that, and I will turn over the floor to you accordingly.
To address the request, pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), that was submitted to the committee on February 16, I'll open up the discussion by turning the floor over to Mr. Strahl.
Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours.