Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for this interesting conversation, gentlemen.
What I'm hearing from all three of you is that Canada has not been serious about its engagement with the continent of Africa. This is not something that I'm putting just on the shoulders of this current government; this is something that we've seen for a number of different years.
You know, my colleague from the Conservatives asked where we should rank Africa, and I'm quite upset with that framing of it, because I think we can't be picking first, second and third. I don't like the idea of that.
One of my big concerns with the current approach that this government has is that they.... You talked about the need for an overarching policy. Well, in the last 12 months, we've seen it go from a strategy to a framework, and then at the last meeting, we were told that it's now an approach. This is a deeply unserious way to engage with the continent of Africa.
I don't understand it. I don't understand the cuts to ODA. I don't understand all of the things that we're seeing. You are all talking about why we need more investment and more attention in Africa, yet the current government is signalling that we can expect some serious cuts to Global Affairs Canada in the budget tomorrow. How do we convince the government of the importance of investing in a massive opportunity?
Also, could you speak a little bit about...? Mr. Black, you talked about Africa playing a role in the centre of world tensions. We know that China's in Africa. We know that Putin's in Africa. We're not, and that is so dangerous for global security as well.
We have, as I think we heard last week, 52 peacekeepers in the field right now. That's unacceptable. How do we convince the government that we need to do more? I know it's a tricky question.
Maybe I'll start with you, Mr. Black, and then I can invite your colleagues to comment.