Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for coming here today.
The front page of this week's The Economist reads “Africa rising”. There's a bunch of stuff in here. It states that over the last decade the six fastest-growing countries in the world were from Africa. It also says that one-quarter of the growth in Africa is from natural resources, but it also says that the average African earns two dollars a day. So how does this translate and trickle down to the average person?
It says that one of the many things that we can do to help Africa continue to improve is more trade than aid. It states a few things in here, such as lowering trade barriers for many goods coming out of Africa. But there's another one here:
Foreign investors should sign the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which would let Africans see what foreign companies pay for licences to exploit natural resources.
You must be well aware of that. What are your comments on that? How are we doing as Canadian companies? Where does that all sit with that initiative?