Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for coming.
I have one significant question, in terms of why anybody would want to invest in Afghanistan. I'm familiar with Mongolia, and in Mongolia the issue right now is the need for a foreign investment protection act, which the Mongolian government has been somewhat reluctant to bring forth to Parliament, given the fact that in the early 1990s it felt it had been taken advantage of as a new democracy, in terms of royalties and taxes.
If you do not have a FIPA agreement or something of that nature in Afghanistan, if you do not have a steady regime that clearly will be able to deal with royalty issues, infrastructure costs, and taxes, and given the fact that the former minister of mines met with Canadian officials in 2008 and was then sacked in 2009 for a $30 million bribe because of a Chinese copper interest—which he denied, but of course then President Karzai sacked him—I'm not quite sure why mining companies would go to Afghanistan. Not to, of course, add to the fact that they're in a war zone.
The question I have, through you, Mr. Chairman, is this. What kind of advice or assistance do you provide to Canadian companies—companies like Kilo, which is looking at doing a major development there—in terms of protection?
Clearly, any investor wants to make sure its assets are protected. In Mongolia, as you probably know, Canadian companies are the second largest investor and yet we're still dancing with the Mongolian government as to protection for Canadian companies, as well as for others, of course.