Could I make the point here that once CIDA was established as an agency by order in council, it kind of immunized itself from the rest of government? This made it very hard for the rest of government to deal with CIDA, except through either a very high level or maybe at the working level. I know from my days as a desk officer in Foreign Affairs and as a director general in Foreign Affairs and at embassies, it has always been an aggravation that the Government of Canada couldn't get its act together, its resources together, to do certain things together.
In a sense, this has been a long time coming, but it has been thought about, probably since the day CIDA was created, and then somebody in Foreign Affairs said, “What kind of a crazy idea is this?”