Thank you, Chair. I appreciate your leniency.
I have just a quick question on a particular situation. Mr. Proudfoot and I have already discussed this, going back a few months.
CIDA had funded an IOM project in the area close to southeast Darfur, in which they came out of Darfur. Many people were Dinka and Nuer and others who'd been up there during the wars. There are a few hundred thousand of them who ended up coming down into that region. The IOM had applied for funding. It received $3 million of CIDA funding to help so that the local communities would not be overrun. That was a very successful program. I was there and saw it myself, and I appreciate what the government did on that.
The IOM--because more are now coming in, and way more are expected to come in as a result of the referendum--applied for a second round of funding to expand those services and were turned down by CIDA just a short while ago.
Now, I'm not asking you to comment on that particular situation. I realize you might not know. I would like to know how you arrive at that decision as departments. Because it seems to me what the Americans have been saying, and what many have been saying, is that will be a key area in which this migration of humanity will come down. I would just like to know how you as a department, working with CIDA and your counterparts there, arrive at a decision like that. Do you meet with all the different departments to talk about it?
I'm just looking for some clarification. I can't figure out why it was turned down.