Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With your permission, in my capacity as Dean of the African Diplomatic Corps here in Canada, I will be speaking before my colleague from Burkina Faso.
Mr. Chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, honourable members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, it is a tremendous pleasure for myself and all my colleagues to be with you this afternoon in the prestigious edifice which is the Parliament of Canada.
In my capacity as Dean of the African Diplomatic Corps here in Canada, I would like to begin by taking this opportunity to express my very sincere thanks to the Chairman and all the members of this Committee for agreeing to meet with us this afternoon before this august assembly. Meetings such as the one this afternoon give us a chance to get to know and understand each other better, in order to foster the development of a more harmonious and advantageous relationship between Canada and Africa.
A foreign head of state made the following comment on February 28, 2008 in South Africa: “Transparency is the best guarantee of solid and lasting relations, and the best antidote to fantasy and incomprehension.”
It is with that desire for dialogue that we come before you this afternoon, as friends of Canada, to exchange views. My colleague from Burkina Faso, to whom I will cede the floor in a moment, is our spokesperson. You have critics here in Parliament, but we have our own spokesperson, who will be delivering our message. With your permission, I would like to very quickly introduce the colleagues mandated by the African group to meet with you this afternoon.
I will name the countries and ask my colleagues to please rise when they hear the name of their country: South Africa, Benin, Burundi, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana—the representative of that country is apparently not here—Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo—which I am representing—Tunisia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Libya which, as you may recall, is now chairing the African Union.
I would like to turn it over now to my colleague from Burkina Faso.