It would always be great to have full unity around these issues, but to get unity of 193 governments is not so easy. As a result, I think what we've learned in the last decade or two is that we can mobilize reform and international action without having a full court press.
We've had initiatives in which maybe eight or nine countries have participated. They bring in partners from the NGO community and partners from the private sector and from the international institutions. They tackle an Ebola problem through the WHO. In our case we did the land mines treaty, which was done outside the circumstance of the UN but brought back into the UN, because there was no way that the negotiating mandates of the UN were going to allow a real solution to that problem.
I think we have to begin to learn how to think away from the hierarchies and the top-down kinds of systems and begin looking at how you develop a network system for active implementation of very specific solutions.
I guess if I were making the case to you as a committee, I would provide a ringing endorsement for the compact and then suggest getting on with looking at the more specific solutions, of which Canada can be a major promoter or interpreter.