I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting No. 43 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, February 3, 2022, the committee is meeting to study inter-city transport by bus in Canada.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
Appearing before us by video conference today as witnesses, we have Dr. Jacob Alhassan, assistant professor, department of community health and epidemiology, college of medicine, University of Saskatchewan, and Dr. Cindy Hanson, professor, department of sociology and social studies, University of Regina. They are appearing as individuals.
Joining us by video conference, we also have, from Coach Atlantic Maritime Bus, Michael Cassidy, owner; from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, we have Matt Gemmel, director, policy and research; and from Kasper Transportation, we have Kasper Wabinski, president.
I'd like to take this opportunity to inform members that all of today's video conference witness participants have completed the necessary audiovisual checks.
Once again, I'll look over to our esteemed translators to get the thumbs-up and make sure everything is good on their end.
We will now begin the opening remarks with Dr. Jacob Alhassan for five minutes.
Sir, the floor is yours.