Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here today with us. This has been a most interesting study for us, one of the most engaging I've been involved with on the foreign affairs committee.
I was on the foreign affairs committee when we reviewed what was then Bill C-300, which was the CSR bill brought forward by one of our Liberal members. We also had some very interesting representations on that one.
Mr. Gratton, I wonder if I can address a couple of questions to you.
Mr. Royer just talked about workplace action, and I think this is a quote. He talked about “changing people's attitudes” toward the workplace. I've had the opportunity to spend some time in Africa. I've now visited nine countries. I have seen many of our CIDA projects, and I have had the opportunity to meet with the extractive industry in every country we've been in.
I want to particularly focus on two projects. One is the IAMGOLD project in Burkina Faso, in Essakane, and the other is the project that has developed around the De Beers facility in Botswana.
Now, Botswana has been very intentional in turning its economy around through understanding what the mineral resources can do for it. De Beers has built a phenomenal facility there that does all of the grading of the diamonds, but there are seven facilities outside of this De Beers facility that are businesses where the people who are Botswanian citizens have real jobs doing all the cutting and the polishing of the diamonds. Botswana has been able to lift itself to become what's now a middle-income country, through tax revenues that are being paid by the individuals who are employed in these facilities.
In the Essakane project that IAMGOLD is investing in, we saw a hospital facility, a primary school, a secondary school, and a skills development school that is giving the people of Burkina Faso real jobs, real opportunity to make a change for their families.
I wonder if you have any other examples, or if you would like to comment a little bit on projects you've seen where these same kinds of initiatives are taking place, where we see that the extractive industry has taken responsibility to help provide the countries with real income.