Thank you.
The bells are ringing, but I have a question. Part of your presentation fascinates me, and I'm going to read up a little more on it.
It's the area where you talk about the three pillars of state-building. You say the focus on state-building is the central objective: “State-building rests on three pillars: the capacity of state structures to perform core functions....” That's the first pillar of state-building; you talk about infrastructure, about health care, perhaps about judiciary, security, all those things. When you look at Haiti, they're failing in all those areas.
The second pillar is their “legitimacy and accountability”. Today we've learned that the deputies, or the members, really don't have a full comprehension of what their responsibilities could be, and perhaps this is why we can twin; perhaps this is why we can become involved. It sounds as if the second pillar is very wobbly. If there's any accountability or any legitimacy it's highly in question.
The third one is the ability to provide “an enabling environment for strong economic performance”. Well, really I don't see any pillars standing in Haiti. Where would the majority of your resources go, if you were going to build or were working on one of those pillars first? To which one pillar would the resources of CIDA or of the parliamentary group you are part of go? Also, you say here that the “Parliamentary Centre's project must, as I indicated earlier in my presentation, quickly demonstrate its ability, insofar as possible....” Well, we have really no pillars standing. You say it has to quickly demonstrate this “to meet the immediate, urgent needs of its Haitian partner. I say insofar as possible because, as the executing agency, there are certain limitations that must be respected, and we must give account to the Canadian International Development Agency.”
What are those certain limitations that must be respected if you're going to be accountable to CIDA?
