I'm delighted and honoured to see all of you here today. Admittedly, we worked very hard last year and we expected to achieve greater results. Inevitably we encountered a number of obstacles which you have clearly identified.
In order to give you a little more time to focus on the whole question of humanitarian consideration or the criteria...Earlier, Mr. Mahoney stated that maybe he could look into this and provide us with more information. For the benefit of those in attendance, I think more detailed information is needed. Perhaps the committee could review some of the initiatives taken last year, with a view to asking the department to ease some of these criteria. We need more substantial arguments to work with.