Thank you, Mr. McNee, for coming.
I was in the UN with Peter MacKay, the foreign minister, and with Alan Rock, and we had the opportunity to sit in your future office. We talked with Kofi Annan and we talked with the assistant secretary general.
Many of the questions that are coming from this must be on government policy issues like 0.7% and the treaty signing and everything, which we'll debate in the House, but the main job that will occupy you when you're there will be UN reform, which is going to become the crucial thing in the coming years. Kofi Annan's reforms come in here, but Mr. Annan will be leaving at the end of this year. I do not find an appetite in the UN for the implementation of Mr. Annan's so-called reforms during his tenure.
We in Canada are a little concerned about how the selection for the Secretary General is going to be done. I noticed that it will be by the Security Council, leaving it again up to the five members in the United Nations with their extraordinary powers that curtail many of the decisions that come from the United Nations because of the politics being played.
In order to make this thing effective, the first area would be--and I want to know your opinion on this--the transition to the new Secretary General. Depending on his own agenda and on how much you and we push for the reform, I believe the new Secretary General will be the guy who does the reform. I'm sorry to say that for Kofi Annan time is running out. I did meet with the Secretary General and the other guys, and although they are working, I don't see the effort.
Do you agree that there is going to be no appetite now and that we should concentrate on seeing who is going to be the next Secretary General and push for the reforms at that time?