Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for joining us at committee. To all of the officials we'll get to speak to in the next hour, I know how much work it is, particularly when you are so busy. I know that a committee appearance puts a lot of people to work.
I'll get right into it on the question of mandates.
Minister, you talked about this at the very beginning, and I know that today Canadians learned—or at least I learned—that you granted some exemptions on the trucker mandate, and I commend you for that.
In your statements over the past months, you continue to claim that vaccine mandates, particularly the cross-border ones, are based in science and are being implemented to protect Canadians. I just wanted to know if you're able to provide the committee with any study or data that you're confidently basing these statements on.