Well, my initial response, subject to advice from this committee, is that we would embrace that type of approach. I think we can do more in fact to go about promoting some of these democratic institutions within our own country that do a lot of work in partnering with the private sector. I think in some cases they provide more independent advice.
Mr. Axworthy is obviously a very scholarly person on this subject. And there are others; there are many in the country who I think have a lot to offer. Having those types of foundations, which in some cases do require some resources, in my view allows us to have the necessary reach, the necessary factual base upon which to work.
All governments, even vibrant democracies like our own, can sometimes become too insular in their thinking. That's why I think that partnering with universities and promoting these types of democratic institutes has a lot of merit. That would be something that I think we would support.
We would obviously want to hear more of the detail about how they would function and the costs associated with that type of foundation. As well, I think we would want to know more about how they would govern themselves, what their purpose would be, what their membership would look like, and what their founding principles would be in terms of how that would fit with the promotion of democracy abroad.