I'm going to interrupt you right there, just so I can continue Mr. Saini's point about central Asia.
I'm going to use a non-western source. Stanislav Pritchin is head of the Expert Center for Eurasian Development and also a research fellow at the institute of oriental studies at the Russian Academy of Science, so he is by no means a western person.
He provided an outlook recently on what he believes are the economic opportunities in central Asia, and he listed most of the states as having a negative outlook, including Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Georgia, he listed as neutral.
The only one with a positive outlook was Uzbekistan, and that's because of the recent change when Karimov passed away. The state refused to reveal that Karimov had passed away, and it was the Turkish government that mistakenly revealed that he had. The new president has kind of embarked on what sound like reforms to the economy, to the labour market, and potentially to its diplomatic relations.
To the point Mr. Saini was making, is there an opportunity for Canada to then insert itself despite this negative outlook? You have older Soviet bureaucracies that still exist there. You have older Soviet leaders. The reason he listed Kazakhstan as a having negative outlook is that President Nursultan Nazarbayev is 76 years old. He's not a young gentleman anymore.
As these Soviet-era bureaucracies and these persons move on, the next generation is taking over and there is this new opportunity. There are continuing Russian interests in the region, but China is now inserting itself. Is there an opportunity for Canada to either expand the economic opportunities for Canadian companies or to insert ourselves into the new mix that's evolving?