Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chairman, if I may, we did bring along some illustrations so that the committee members might see some examples of photos taken during visits. It might be of interest to the members. We'll leave them with you.

Canadian Heritage committee  My personal view and professional judgment is that the system works very well. I am very thankful for modern technology, for a BlackBerry, for the ability to reach out at practically any time of the night or day to our posts abroad, to colleagues in the field, to make sure that i

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say Canada is quite fortunate. Canada's brand is very, very positive. Our approach is well-liked. People like visiting Canada and engaging in activities with us. Our goal is to show our visitors hospitality, not to be a country that offers everything. For instance, we hav

Canadian Heritage committee  I believe so, but perhaps you should ask our visitors.

Canadian Heritage committee  The teamwork with other members, with strategic partners like CBSA, parliamentary protocol, with Rideau Hall...it's not only face to face, when we're talking about treatment handling for an event, for a visit, but it's on the telephone; it's constant e-mails. It requires teamwork

Canadian Heritage committee  It would be through consultation—for example, with the office of the Governor General. It would be consultation as well with, say, our legal colleagues to make sure that whatever change we were proposing did not conflict with our obligations under the Vienna convention—not that i

Canadian Heritage committee  With the willing and enthusiastic consent of all concerned.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right.

Canadian Heritage committee  We actually have budgets under the international conference allotment as well as the general hospitality allotment. These are sums entrusted to the Office of Protocol by the Treasury Board, for which we are entirely accountable, of course, and sums that are not spent are returned

Canadian Heritage committee  The IPU falls under the responsibility of parliamentary protocol, but certainly we've already discussed it with them. We offer advice and support, and for the head of the organization, we also offer the kind of airport transfer facilitation that I mentioned earlier.

Canadian Heritage committee  Perhaps I could ask my colleagues, if you agree, to what extent they may have already been involved in this.

Canadian Heritage committee  We were very busy during that period because there was a plethora of high-level visitors attending the events. It's also complicated because of course the Olympics have their own protocol as well. It was an event for which some of our colleagues were based semi-permanently in Van

Canadian Heritage committee  May I take this opportunity to thank Newfoundland, because just 10 days ago there was an economic mission of nearly 50 ambassadors based in Canada who visited Newfoundland for an economic mission and were wonderfully received. It's part of our outreach program. Thank you very muc

Canadian Heritage committee  As I mentioned earlier, our office works very closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues across Canada. We make a point of getting together once a year to compare notes on best practices, new approaches—for example, the use of iPads rather than large briefing books—wh

Canadian Heritage committee  I can't speak for the previous period, but I can tell you, in all honesty, that they are excellent now. From time to time, we also exchange staff for short periods for secondments. For example, just in the short time that I've been chief of protocol, we've had two secondments fro