Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests for their presentations.
Many of us of course continue to be worried about the situation in Pakistan. In and of itself, just the situation within the borders of Pakistan is of concern—a nuclear power, with many, many expatriates here in Canada. I guess my concern, however, is not just confined to within of the borders of Pakistan but also to what has been alluded to as the Doppler effect, if you will, or the effect within the region of what's happened in Pakistan.
As a party, we have written to the minister. Back on November 6 I wrote to the minister asking for the following actions: to call on the Government of Pakistan for the restoration of constitutional rule and timely free and fair elections, unencumbered by the Pakistani military; to call for international observation of the elections; to offer Canada's experience in observing the elections; to empower Pakistani democrats and human rights activists in developing civilian leadership, free from military interests; and we called on the Commonwealth to suspend Pakistan's membership until such time as democracy has been restored. Some of those things were followed up on, I'm glad to say.
As for the idea that we can have elections there of the same standard as Canadian elections, I don't think anyone would assume those are going to happen. But you mention that there are going to be unofficial observations of the elections. I'd just like to know if we've provided additional resources to the consular services already in the area, and if so, how many resources have been afforded to our mission in Pakistan since the crackdown.
Secondly--this is related, but might seem like it's a little off topic--I'd like to know whether or not the whole issue of the pipeline presently proposed to go from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and to India has come up. The reason I'm bringing this question up is that it's something we certainly haven't debated here, but it relates to energy security. I know it's going to be an issue that will be raised at the NATO meetings this spring. I think most Canadians are unaware that energy security has been an issue at NATO.
I'm just wondering if there's been any dialogue with our mission there about the security concerns regarding the proposed pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan.