Mr. Dewar, I think you're asking a shoe salesman if he'd like to have more shoe stores.
Yes. I think the Brazilians had 11 embassies among the 54 countries of Africa 15 years ago, and today they have 31. What do they know that we don't know? I don't know. If you took that through many other countries, you'd find the same trend.
We're going in a counter-trend direction. I don't know why we are. I know life is tough and budgets are tight and we can do things smarter, but yes, I believe Canada has interests to protect and project. We haven't been doing much of that lately.
I hear constant stories about reduction in facilities, embassies, budgets, people. The last house I lived in as a diplomat was a lovely house in Rome that we bought for a song—not with our money. The Italians had to pay us reparations because we won and they didn't, and therefore we used that money to buy a residence. That residence was paid for with the blood of 6,000 Canadian soldiers. I'm told we're now selling that house. Does that make sense? Hell, no.
So, yes, I do think the budgets of the Department of Foreign Affairs ought to be restored. We have things to say in the world and we ought to be back saying them.