Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our guests for their opening remarks.
I'm going to start with Darfur. We've been talking about that a little bit.
I just wanted to bring to your attention the fact that the UN, as recently as this week, said that the mission we're all hoping will go ahead will fail unless countries can provide helicopters and lorries—this is actually a BBC report, so they say “lorries”—and that the deployment is to begin in six weeks.
On August 2 we had Mr. MacKay, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs, announce the $48 million in aid for Darfur. He told us the money would go towards providing fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, fuelling, and training. We keep hearing that the mission on the ground is without helicopters, so where is the money, or where are the helicopters? Can you help me with that? I'm looking at the appropriations here and I'm looking at the announcements of the government. I'm trying to put these two things together, and I'm hearing from the UN that this mission is not going to go ahead unless they have the supplies.
My understanding is that we have helicopters. I've seen it announced by the government. I've seen money announced there for it—so where are the helicopters?