Thank you very much, Chair.
I'm very fortunate to have been at Global Affairs Canada for 15 years, and I now serve as the shadow minister for democratic institutions.
Mr. Deveaux, you talked a lot about a lack of leadership that we've seen since 2007. Certainly while the work on the ground is absolutely important, leadership always starts from the top. We talked a little in the previous panel about relationships and approaches to relationships.
It's very interesting. I even think of the comparison of something such as our leaders' trips to India, where the relationships and the perception of those trips between the Prime Minister and my leader, Andrew Scheer, came across very differently, both abroad and within India, and certainly within Canada.
That moves me to Cuba. I had the good fortune of serving as policy adviser to Mr. Kent when he was minister of state of foreign affairs for the Americas. It was very interesting. At that time, the Conservative policy regarding Cuba was that we only engage with dissidents.
Similar to the spirit that my colleague, member Vandenbeld, has taken with this great initiative, I really was looking at the broader perspective, because I recognized that if Canada weren't there, certainly who would be? Well, it would be Russia filling the void; it would be China filling the void. Even though Brazil had just recently won the World Cup and the Olympics, I could see that it was not nearly as strong a developed democracy as it was getting credit for at the time. Of course, this was 2009.
That said, when our Prime Minister, for example, laments the death of a dictator and his close relationships with that family, does that affect the work you do on the ground?
Mr. Deveaux.