Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I'm sure my colleagues from CIDA can also help on this one. I think you're absolutely right that Canada's efforts in Africa are made by NGOs, companies, and governments. In fact, what makes it work is that they're all working with the same ideals in mind.

Foreign Affairs committee  You've asked a question that I would run out the clock on.

Foreign Affairs committee  I won't answer it for that long, then. Our comments are that where you had warring states before, they are now starting to cooperate--economically, politically, militarily. In effect, that is what Canada has been trying to do, that they take charge of their own destiny. Mada

Foreign Affairs committee  I think Isabelle could answer that better than I.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your questions. If I'm not mistaken, 22 Canadian companies are working in that region. Our head of mission, our ambassador, has met individually with every company. Our senior trade commissioner has met with these companies to follow up on what corporate social re

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, could we make one very quick intervention? Isabelle.

Foreign Affairs committee  That is a twofold question. First of all, I think you asked the right question, which is that you work to get to a point in time, but then what do you do to follow up afterwards to make sure that it works? I think there are a couple of answers I would give to that. One is that

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon everyone. Mr. Chair, members, you have chosen a very important topic for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It's key to how we view Africa. The African Great Lakes region is suffering from a long-standing chain of

Foreign Affairs committee  The short answer is that we do not have that. It's like the question of how many people are in there. The UN claims it could be towards 100,000. The Government of Sri Lanka says it might be down to 50,000 because people are managing to escape. That's why we use the range of 50,0

Foreign Affairs committee  There's a deep freeze. Thank you for the question. Let me go back to a standing committee I attended not that long ago where we were talking about corporate social responsibility in Sudan. Somebody asked a very specific question and said we were all concerned about a certain Ca

Foreign Affairs committee  I have a very quick comment. Mr. Dorion, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to respond to your question. I believe the IDRC is the only NGO currently in the conflict zone, and several of our partners are in the IDP camps. So in working with the partners, you are absolutely right i

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not sure there's a big difference except that one side uses one word and nobody else wants to use it. The issue was that the government saw a “ceasefire” as a chance for the LTTE to re-arm and re-equip. A humanitarian pause was all around the issue of what's happening to the

Foreign Affairs committee  If I could just quickly add, I did say they asked us not to make any further requests. That doesn't mean we're not going to. It's clear from our perspective that that is the first priority. The UN humanitarian chair was there. He did not get access. We will continue. The French a

Foreign Affairs committee  There is a misapprehension. There are a number of moderate Tamils in the Government of Sri Lanka right now, so it's not as though it's a clean divide of people based on religious or ethnic groups. There are ministers and there are different people. We can find people to work with

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not aware that previous pauses, ceasefires, whatever term you want to use.... The word “ceasefire” has been utilized by the LTTE. The word humanitarian “pause” is the one the UN has used because it got away from one side or the other.