Mr. Speaker, what exists now is a vacuum, which concerns many of us. I will qualify that because there are people who are looking for methods to help Egypt come out of its 30 years of repression and seek a new day.
There are people who have been seen as perhaps interim leaders. I think this approach makes sense but it is up to Egyptians to decide. One person who has been put up as a possibility is Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. He is respected by many of the Egyptian people and has offered. There is also the approach of having different leaders come together as an interim group to oversee affairs until there are fair elections and a new president elected.
However, it is important for the Government of Canada to be plugged in and know what is happening on the ground. The Minister of Foreign Affairs suggested that Egypt's opposition parties today had accepted Mr. Mubarak's offer to allow for a period of time until reforms are made. As soon as that was articulated, many people in Cairo rejected it immediately. What I hear now is that they have decided not to accept Mubarak's offer.
Clearly we need to be plugged in and we need to know what is happening on the ground. We should be careful not to interfere but careful to support when we see there is a consensus in Egypt. I think that is the best that Canada can do.