I guess that comes to me, since I've been a head of mission on two occasions, and the heads of mission are among the people we're consulting.
The role of a head of mission is as always to integrate and coordinate all of the Canadian government's presence abroad and to provide services to Canadians overseas. That is generically what the role is. This change is not dramatic, but it is subtle and it is important. What it means is that, whereas previously....
I will give you a specific example. I was Canada's ambassador to Cuba from 2000 to 2003. We had a small but very valuable and effective aid program, which continues there. I was a big supporter of what it was doing to promote economic modernization in a rather particular context. The difference is that the head of that program kept me informed at all times of the activities, and I would represent Canada's overall interests in that program. Once a development function becomes part of the same ministry, though, your head of mission has a lot more of a role to play upstream, in the planning and discussion process as to what the priorities will be going forward, and furthermore will review people's performance. You don't do that, as a head of mission, for people who come from other departments. You are there to coordinate the implementation, but you're not there to actually evaluate it.
The flip side is equally important, and this is a message that I give in internal discussions. Development, now, under this new ministry, is going to be everybody's business. I repeat that. It's everybody's business, in the same way that trade and commerce are everybody's business. So heads of mission will be judged on their contribution to the development assistance program. This won't just be in places where there are development assistance programs.
I made a point to our ambassadors, in those four countries that we visited, that they were expected—and I have followed up with them—to start doing continuing analysis and engagement with those countries, and this will be done in other donor countries as well, so that we're better informed about what other donors are doing. This is because, even if you're posted in Finland—to pick a country that you used in your example—our head of mission there should now put a little higher on his priority list the analyzing and understanding of how Finnish aid works, in order to inform and target our activities more effectively.
So it's both an internal and an external change in the role, in terms of the priority that it gives for heads of missions.