Good afternoon, colleagues. Welcome. This is meeting 21 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, April 3, 2008.
Today we will have a special briefing to update the committee on the situation in Haiti. Our committee, as you know, tabled a report in the House of Commons in December 2006 entitled “Canada's International Policy Put to the Test in Haiti”, following many meetings that we held on our study of Canada's attempts to make a difference in Haiti. We have a number of witnesses here today to update us.
In our first hour we will hear from Rights and Democracy. We have Monsieur Jean-Paul Hubert, the interim president; Danièle Magloire, the coordinator of the Haiti office; and Nicholas Galletti, Americas regional officer. Also appearing, from the Parliamentary Centre, Mr. John Wood, the program manager of Haiti; and hopefully, from the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, Carlo Dade, the executive director.
We welcome you here today and we look forward to your comments. As you know, each person making a presentation may speak for approximately ten minutes and then we'll go into the first round of questioning. I'll also say that at the next hour we will have a second group of witnesses, but we will be leaving fifteen minutes at the end of the final hour for committee business.
Mr. Dewar.