Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable delegates, welcome. Bonjour. Dzien dobry.
I won't go into Polish since we've only got translators here in English and French.
I just wanted to say that I welcome the comments you have made here today. I echo some of the concerns of my colleagues and some of the points you made, specifically that the riding I represent, West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea to Sky Country, is a riding that's made up of many of the countries that are listed in your list of excluded countries: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. I will take my five minutes here just to urge the Government of Canada to seriously work towards speeding up this process in recognizing these countries so that we have a better relationship with the European Commission and the European Union.
According to the documents my staff has provided to me, the last review was undertaken in 2004, if I'm correct, and I think between 2004 and 2006, Europe--and indeed the world--has changed very rapidly. The world is getting a lot smaller; we're getting a lot closer together. If Canada really, truly wants to have a voice on the world stage, we have to move together with organizations like this and cooperate a lot more fully in an open and transparent manner.
I would urge the government to do whatever they can to process this as quickly as possible in order to facilitate the movement of people as easily as possible between our countries.