Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think if you look at the kinds of initiatives we focus on, it's really working on some of the enabling environments, such as making the courts more professional.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I cannot think of one off the top of my head.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  This is also quite symptomatic of a country that is moving forward and evolving, with a lot of rapid changes on multiple levels. In terms of the CIDA program, that's why we try to work with and put a lot of effort into identifying the reform-minded elements among the people we work with, so that we don't get exposed to those kind of situations.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  For us, we have to operate at a very practical level. To give you one example, we have a project dealing with migrant labour rights. The reason we've been able to do it is that right now China has a tremendously large number of migrant workers. Therefore, it becomes an opportunity for the international community and for us to be able to look at how we can address some of those labour rights issues.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If you look at the numbers, the income per capita in China is about $1,700. Depending which sorts of numbers you follow, in the case of the Chinese and using their standard, there are about 30 million below the poverty line.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  To answer your second question, I will say that human rights are not very important to the Chinese government. That is why our program specifically focuses on human rights. As for the Chinese aid for Darfour, in Africa, it is important to note that the international community has the opportunity to influence China regarding the implementation of this aid program and to encourage it to consider factors such as governance and rights.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Right now, I think we're looking at 40-something per cent of our programs being in the human rights and governance area.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's a question of where you want to have some entry points that will make sense, given the conditions in China. Just to give you one fact—and this is in response to the earlier question about scale and whether there should be conditionality and economics and so on—at the end of the day, the ODA in China is less than 0.1% of their capital flows.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would say that if you look at the current programming, it's highly focused on human rights and the environment. In those areas, we are sharing and providing Canadian expertise to help influence the opening up of China in those sensitive areas. In the case of the environment, it has clearly had a major impact on the rest of the world and in Canada.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Perhaps I can start and my Foreign Affairs colleagues can either confirm or dispute this. Fundamentally, if you look at the annual human rights dialogue that's spearheaded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, CIDA officers, generally at the director level, are part of the Canadian team.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Mr. Chairman, honourable members of the committee, it is a great pleasure for me to testify, along with my colleagues, before the subcommittee today. Following on the presentations given by my colleagues from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the purpose of my presentation is to provide you with information on CIDA's development cooperation program with China related to human rights.