Thank you very much.
First off, I'd just like to say thank you to Mr. St. Denis for taking over the chairmanship. I apologize; I had a banking issue. There was an NSF cheque that was written to me, and it causes a chain reaction, so you have to stem it before it causes greater damage. I just wanted to let everybody know that was the nature of it.
That being said, I would also like to carry on and say I want to thank our presenters today.
Before we start off with our list of questions, I do want committee members to be somewhat mindful that we've had tremendous success with regard to moving from the old days, when we had a Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. It was all rolled into one, and often the urgent, sexier issues, for lack of a better term, of national defence meant the veterans affairs issues got a back burner. Now, of course, we've set up a separate committee to deal with veterans affairs.
Our witnesses are here today because a number of parties wanted to have them here based on the trips we had done and everything else. So we should try to keep our questions and commentary focused on veterans as best as we can.
That being said, we're on to our predetermined rotation, so it's the Liberal Party of Canada, Mr. Russell, for seven minutes.