This is kind of a wide-ranging discussion, and all of my questions actually got eaten up along the way in I think a very constructive fashion.
When I was listening, and especially in the beginning, the Mark Twain saying occurred to me, that people have a face they show their family, a face they show their friends, and a face they don't show anybody. To some degree, we're getting some enlightenment on the latter in this conversation.
Again, when we talk about communism...I was recently in China, and without going into too much detail, I raised the issue of Falun Gong at a meeting. I had a person suddenly say, “Well, it's not in the media”. Since it's not in the media, it can't exist in a state-controlled media. So it made for an interesting discussion--a very brief one.
We have the The National Corporate Social Responsibility Report that has recently been completed. We've just received that report. To my mind, that's one of the ways of influencing Canadian companies and how they function relative to Cuba, and this group will be looking at that. Another one...I have an embarrassment here because we talk about the system of UN rights and obligations, and Canada hasn't even signed onto the optional protocol against torture. So before we point fingers, we'd better wrap that one up and carry on.
The civil society in Cuba.... I've been there a number of times. I've walked freely in Havana without someone around me. But you can sense, even when you talk to people, they're looking over their shoulder. So I'm really encouraged to hear the discussion around how we can support civil society.
Again, I was going to speak about CIDA, which you raised a few minutes ago, but it strikes my mind that the dollars Canada offers via CIDA are too small to have a tremendous impact. But Mr. Broadbent's suggestion of this dialogue or conference I think is a significant step Canada could take.
Beyond that, I really don't have questions to ask, because you've communicated it so well, the passion we heard across the way from the individuals who were detained. As I say, I'll leave it at this point to go to the second round.