Absolutely. We agree with what your committee saw, which is that, as much as there is progress in highly visible areas of policing and justice, every time there's progress in those areas, it can also uncover more corruption. That's been one of the paradoxes that the Ukrainian judicial system has been dealing with. The more resources they place into anti-corruption, the more they discover deep corruption within their ranks.
Obviously, a free and open media will report on these things, so there is a simultaneous, growing distrust by members of the public. Both of us have family members we talk with, so while there is this parallel track of both fighting the corruption and cynicism, we see that there needs to be a sustained, long-term effort to fight this systemic corruption. It's as small as this. The medical system is not funded properly, or the school system, so parents or patients will bring funds to their doctor or their teacher to give their patient or their student extra support. That's not seen as the same thing as an official skimming off of percentages of a loan or a government program, but there are many levels of corruption.
We've been working through the Ukrainian World Congress and with our partners there, with many NGOs, to build a sustainable base of funding for these groups to allow them to see multi-year plans, and that it's not a flash in the pan. This will all not be resolved in three years or five years. This took a long time to develop, and it's about social values, citizenship. We're seeing some progress in those areas, but I guess our main point is to say to you, as parliamentarians, and to Canada that we can't allow those small setbacks and those shocking stories of corruption that are uncovered to cause us to withdraw our support. All of those things actually point out that we're working right in step with the right partners in Ukraine, who are mostly of a younger generation that has not participated in the government system to the degree that other people have. A lot of those former regime folks have fled.
Again, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze was here, the vice-prime minister of Ukraine, formerly a civil society activist, formerly a journalist. These are the people who have inherited this mess. We believe, in the majority of cases, that things are going in the right direction and that a sustained, long-term vision is required to get past this large problem that envelops both official and non-official Ukrainian society.