I guess the starting point here should always be that the consular service represents the Canadian in difficulty overseas. That's our function. That's our responsibility in government, and no one else in government has that responsibility.
The RCMP or CSIS or the Canada Border Services Agency all have their own mandates, and those mandates drive them in certain directions, which could be very inimicable to the kinds of things we try to achieve. Sometimes within government that coordination doesn't take place, and there is a need for that coordination to take place.
Some of the cases we've recently gone through were resolved through civil cases in which the courts agreed that the RCMP or CSIS were contributors to the detention and the imprisonment of Canadians abroad without any sort of due process. It's in those kinds of cases that I think the great difficulty occurs. I think both the O'Connor inquiry and the Iacobucci inquiry had a lot to say in this area. I'm not sure whether or not their reports have necessarily found acceptance throughout the government, so I think the possibility of those kinds of cases still arriving is still there.
In the area of kidnapping, which I think you alluded to as well, it is your ability to reach into another country, and more often than not you're limited in dealing with the other government. What you're looking for is an intermediary who's going to add some validity as far as the kidnappers are concerned.
Before I retired, the vast majority of kidnappings that I dealt with were in Colombia. In Colombia there is even a law that prevented us from doing any sort of direct negotiations. However, the Catholic Church in Colombia was exceptional and willing to accept the mandate. Their mandate in such cases was the same as ours, and that was to try to save the life of the individual involved. The Catholic Church was exceptional.
Also, in some of these countries the International Committee of the Red Cross has a bit of a mandate in this area, and it's been willing in some cases to act. It's been quite active, I think, as far as Syria and Iraq are concerned. The point is that you've got to go out and find an intermediary.
In the case of Mr. Fowler and Mr. Guay, who were kidnapped in West Africa, I suppose it's fair to say the local government took a very active interest in this area, and there have even been suggestions that it was the local government that actually paid the ransom ultimately for their release.