Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for appearing here today, gentlemen.
I have reviewed the impressive credentials of the four of you appearing today. I have noted as well the credentials and political background of other persons associated with the organization over the years: Mr. Broadbent, NDP; and Warren Allmand, Liberal.
Mr. Matas, you said you had run as a Liberal at one time. Mr. Farquhar has run with the Saskatchewan Party, which I think we can conclude to be on the Conservative side.
That indicates there is a broad political spectrum in your organization. It bodes well for the very important work you have been doing. I'll be looking forward to your updating your plans for the future too.
In keeping with that, Mr. Farquhar, I want to talk about some of the comments you made. You have quite a bit of experience with OSCE, as have I and others in Parliament. I think I've been on 11 different election monitoring programs--in different parts of the world too. I think it's an excellent background to develop the philosophy and theories on how to move forward to help some of the situations. There's nothing like being on the streets during the political challenge and game to determine what is right and wrong and what has to be done.
I'm very interested in your comment that you've been looking at political party development, which I would take to include policy development. One of the things that has been made very clear to me is that some of these struggling democracies have so many political parties--some have 40 or 50 political parties running in an election--that it's very difficult for them to organize policy development, what the political party should be doing.
Haiti is one example that you mentioned being involved in. There is a serious lack of understanding of how the members of Parliament should be representing the people.
Could you expand a bit on the party development, and perhaps some other initiatives that you will be looking at in the future?