Foreign Affairs committee  I would just add on the subject of education and talking about our development assistance program in Bangladesh. It's a major pillar of our long-term development assistance program in Bangladesh. We are currently contributing $64 million over five years to a very large national

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, and that database has been started up and is being maintained by a government body of Bangladesh, the Department of Inspections for Factories and Establishments. They're in the process of identifying in the database—which you'll be able to see—the factories that have been in

Foreign Affairs committee  That remains to be seen. Obviously, that's one of the things to follow up on and that will be part of this ILO $24-million project. We'll be doing that, as we normally do in any kind of development assistance project that supporting. The managers of the project from ILO will be h

Foreign Affairs committee  They're both voluntary arrangements as to of whether or not one joins them. Once you've joined them, you have obligations, but which differ between the two associations. In terms of the negative consequences, those would be in regard to your access as a supplier to the kind of

Foreign Affairs committee  On the work of the ILO, I think the ambition is to cover everybody. The laws apply to everybody. As for factories that sign up for the alliance and the accord, it is far short of all the factories in Bangladesh. As you would expect, it's typically the larger operations that are d

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the government is very receptive. Of course, it's a complex situation. As Mr. MacArthur mentioned, you may have people sitting in the parliament there who are factory owners. Obviously, there are deep-rooted systemic problems that will not be fixed overnight, but the gove

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I can speak to that with reference to the project that my colleague, Mr. MacArthur, mentioned. The Government of Canada is providing $8 million for a larger project, a $24-million project also being funded by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in a tripartite in

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would say that it's a very predominant theme running through the programming we support that's related to rebuilding livelihoods in the north. A predominant theme in that is empowering women economically. Through skills training programs, for instance, we support through World

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I believe they're being done in Tamil as well as in Sinhalese, but I'll get back to you on the specifics on that for the different programs.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They would be principally on the humanitarian side through agencies like the UN Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Food Programme, all of which maintain very substantial operations. Apart from the other things we've been discussing, Sri L

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sure. In terms of our long-term development programs, I won't speak to particular local partners, but we work through some Canadian non-government organizations, international non-government organizations, and agencies of the United Nations system on projects aimed at helping the

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I wouldn't be in a position to say for particular local governments. My understanding is that it varies depending on the locale and who is actually in administration locally, but central control remains very strong, particularly in the north, and there's a heavy military presence

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That would be a very difficult assessment to make because through our partners we are targeting the areas where we feel the most progress can be made. There's a degree of self-selection. If you're trying to run a statistically valid experiment, it would be hard to say because our