Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses. I'm going to follow up directly with Ms. Dawson.
I was very taken by your testimony. It's good to see you've made the transition well. I also note our leader had taken advantage of the offer of the institute you work at to deliver a speech there a couple years ago, and I accompanied him. It is really important—I think, the words you speak—on making sure we are more present.
One of the issues I want to bring up is that the government had what was called the Americas strategy when it was elected. There was a review of that strategy—I'm not sure if you read the review—back in 2011 by the government. One of the things it said was that they—and this is the government's own review—were lacking in guiding objectives and some sort of oversight for the Americas strategy within government.
I think most people objectively look at the government's intention as good—the Americas strategy—but it seems to disappear. I think what was cogent for me in the 2011 review by the government of its own strategy was that there wasn't the contemplation within government as to setting out objectives, following up, and having some oversight to it. I'm hearing great ideas from all witnesses—and certainly in the last committee meetings we heard terrific stuff on standards, in particular—and that obviously has to relate to dealing with the regulatory concerns people have. You have to have similar standards.
I'm wondering if you could share with us, Ms. Dawson, if we're going to recast the relationship, or reboot it, however you want to put it. Do we need to have an approach to the Americas, the three countries, that allows for better interdepartmental cooperation and effective oversight? If that's the case—and I'm assuming you would say yes—what's your experience? How would you do that? What advice could you give?
If we're going to set these great objectives, and we make recommendations, we need to have some confidence that they will be implemented well in terms of the function within government. I wonder if you could share with us some ideas around that.