Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to welcome the minister to our committee. I have many questions for him. He won't be surprised to hear that.
We had the opportunity to hear from CSOs and from experts and from members of his department about the humanitarian response in Pakistan. I'm very grateful for their testimony.
But I do want to ask some questions with regard to some of the other outstanding issues. The first one I want to ask him about is the humanitarian carve-out that we have still not seen for Afghanistan—again he won't be surprised to hear this.
Minister, this has been well over a year. It's very desperate. There are millions of people whose lives are at risk.
Could you be very specific on where the holdup is on that? I know you have said that you are working on this, but we are really running out of time. I'm wondering if it's your ministry, if it is another ministry. I'm wondering where civil society, where advocates, should be putting their pressure to push to make sure that this humanitarian carve-out finally happens.