Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First and foremost, it's a very difficult problem. There's no getting around the fact that the presence of small arms on the ground in Darfur, and frankly all over Sudan, is huge and constitutes a problem, a threat to the security of the people there.
One of the things we're trying to do through Canada's peace-building program, one of the elements of our global peace and security fund, is to fund a base-line survey of small arms inside Darfur that would help in a number of different ways. It would help with the creation and subsequent implementation of a disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program. It would help get a sense of exactly where these arms are coming from, the degree to which they are considered to be necessary for the security of individuals, or if they are contributing to the activities of rebel groups and so forth.
We believe it is a significant problem that we should be addressing, and it goes back to one of your colleagues who suggested that addressing the underlying causes of the conflict and putting in place peace-building efforts would help to lay the groundwork for a sustainable peace settlement.