Foreign Affairs committee  You asked the toughest question at the very end of our discussion. Hopefully, what we have been saying and doing are in large part an answer to your question. We are taking the steps that we believe are necessary to ensure there are safe workplaces in Bangladesh. We do believe th

Foreign Affairs committee  I was there two months ago.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  We do here. We did not have our own people on the ground in the region last April. We do now. We're starting to build that team. We have a handful of people who are going to be working in the region to do just that. It's a group effort, I guess. We have our own people on the gr

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, we're far better off than we were 10 or 11 months ago. The numbers I've seen for the proposed number of inspectors needed range from 200 to 800. So somewhere in-between would likely be the right number. There are so many other variables—and here I think it was Peter who men

Foreign Affairs committee  —that if a number of factories moved, in this case, to that new location with new facilities, and had all been inspected, then the number of inspectors required to do the rest of the work would go down. Honestly, I think it's a bit of a mug's game for me to even estimate.

Foreign Affairs committee  There's no question, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a good thing for us to do. I've had conversations with people in the minister's office and the department, and there certainly seems to be receptivity to that.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, it will and does, but to a very limited degree at this point, because only a limited number of factories have been inspected. But if you go on the website of the accord, there is a list currently of a relatively small number of reports of problematic inspections that have b

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Certainly we would do due diligence in regard to the integrity and the history of the agent or the vendor whom we contract with, whether a factory-owner or not. Then before a purchase order would be cut, an inspection of the factory they were going to be sourcing from on o

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, I caution you not to confuse the accord with the compensation initiatives. The two aren't the same thing.

Foreign Affairs committee  We're the only Canadian company that has signed onto the accord. There are many Canadian companies that are engaged with the workplace safety efforts, many of them through the alliance. On the compensation file, to be honest I don't really want to speak about others, other than

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure, I'd be happy to. First of all, we don't own any of the factories in Bangladesh. As I said 11 months ago, we operate through the vendors we contract with, who then subsequently either own the factories or contract with factories on the ground. There has been significant

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, and now they're combined. As I've said before, pretty much no one was inspecting for the structural integrity of the buildings before and that's being done now. I would point out that the alliance and the accord have agreed on a common set of standards that I think is a very