Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to start my question and I want to make a comment for all of our witnesses that you should know and that I should have mentioned at the beginning to you. We are doing a study on this issue, but we're going to be doing a report. For anything that's not captured, or you have a thought afterwards, please feel free to send in recommendations, reports, or thoughts to our capable crew here to help us with our work.
I want to start with Father Toma. I was with Mr. Garneau, as well as Minister Baird, and we were all very troubled by what we saw. I'd been in the same region in 2007 when it was an island of stability, security, and diversity, and it was quite shocking for me to see. I want to follow up on a comment you made because there are some things we disagree with the government on. There are things we agree on and there's a consensus on; that we should be involved, and that humanitarian assistance was absolutely critical. Mr. Garneau I'm sure would agree that everyone we talked to, including our ambassador, was emphatic about the need to immediately help those in need, and that notwithstanding that there has been some help, there's not enough.
I wanted to quickly hear from you. You were saying that the pledges have been made, but the response, the aid, has not been delivered. A clear question is who should Canada be dialoguing with? We met with people from the Barzani group, which is an NGO. Is that who we should be coordinating our efforts with? Churches obviously, but help us here, because I think it's critical that we get our support on the ground and get the aid delivered. Perhaps you can help us with that, how we can speed things up.