Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Not exactly. I should say that this process involving the government is just getting started. Everything needs to be discussed, and the standards, phases, measurable aspects and so on need to be determined. However, as we noted earlier today, elections are scheduled for 2015. So

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Not yet. The minister's announcement, his expression of interest in seeing engagement with the Burmese parliament, is all very recent.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  And literally they will be just thoughts, because we don't have concrete answers to a lot of that. I think all of those are excellent questions that we will need to ask the Government of Burma: what is going on? An important aspect of the progress forward is getting a clear under

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, they are in some respects. This is exactly the question we are asking in order to follow up on Burma's social and democratic development. The legislative authorities have basically been doing a good job for about a year. These people have also created a national commission o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are none. The sanctions have been very effective.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, of course. It would be possible now for Canadian companies to get involved in Burma and look at economic opportunities and investment opportunities. The minister just this week announced the suspension of sanctions.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It was China, Thailand, and India, as well, to a certain extent. It's a mineral-rich country. There is also gas, and there are deposits that have been.... Under the American and European sanctions, there was a grandfathering of companies that were already active. So Chevron has

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They need to more or less put in place what they're talking about. It has been more than just good talk; they've been backing it up with actions. Very often in situations like this we see statements for international public consumption and then actions that defy the intent or app

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  My understanding is yes—and, Jeff, you may have a little bit more on this—but in fact our understanding is that international NGOs in particular are able to operate in areas where they want to, but in a limited function. The reporting that we get is that there is generally good s

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'll speak very briefly to that and then pass it over to my colleague, who also has a little bit more information, I believe, on the operation of NGOs. We'll be having a mission going in from our embassy in Bangkok, and an official or two from Ottawa, to go and look at what are

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  What we have is essentially from public records and press reports. Initially President Thein Sein was in Japan when this issue came up, and the report was that he was not comfortable discussing the oath that members of parliament have to swear in order to enter parliament. Since

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We're always hopeful, of course. One of the things we've noticed is that the civilian government doesn't necessarily control the military. There have been orders from the civilian government to implement ceasefires, and some of these orders have been ignored in Kachin state. The

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The UN process of periodic reviews is one where we will have comments, but this particular review is not one that we participated in directly.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly the timeline we end up with—which works, in fact—is 2015, when general elections are to take place. So that provides a bookend that is really quite useful, from both perspectives. It also conditions the Burmese government to understand that there will be intense scruti

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  To our best understanding, and it is an assessment and an estimate to a large extent, there are concerns about prisoners of conscience or political prisoners remaining in detention. There could be hundreds—our estimate is up to 1,000, but these are estimates. The real question,