Mr. Chairman, I cannot confirm that. The member is referring to a report concerning such a meeting in the media. There was a fairly important meeting—I believe it was Thursday evening—of the friends of the chair group. It took place at the same time as another ministers' meeting and some representatives, that is the minister or myself, had to attend those two meetings.
In fact, the minister did not leave any critical meeting that was in search of consensus over the conference. Canada was represented at senior levels, at appropriate levels, in all of these meetings. In some cases--I would say in most of these meetings--some countries would have their minister there; others would have their alternate head of delegation there. It would not always be the same in each case, and it would not always be the same for a given country in each of those meetings.
As the conference went on, towards the end, in fact in most of the key meetings the minister and I and typically Mr. McGovern were there together. That is what happened, and that is what would normally happen in the conference.