Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have to apologize to our guest as well. I was the last person into the room, because I was delayed coming out of our vote.
I would agree with what I'm hearing from your testimony, when you're saying how Canada must join the international community and be a lead voice in ensuring that Iran's human rights abuses are taken to task on the international stage. You used the work “impunity”, and many times before this committee we hear of South American nations, or any nation, that seem to have totalitarian types of government....
I listened to your testimony when you were talking about the election and if Mr. Ahmadinejad loses. I am curious about one thing. You had a candidate before by the name of Khatami, I believe, who stepped aside for the current candidate to run. I'll ask you a couple of questions and then maybe you'll be free to answer. I'm curious as to what the political manoeuvring was that would cause that. Is it symptomatic of a problem?
In the supreme leadership, you said that all three were insiders, I guess. Is that symptomatic of some kind of change happening there? We see media reports. In fact, I just saw one last night, or the night before, about the excitement in Iran over the election and that people were on the streets in a way they haven't been in years. If you take that in sync with the fact that it looks like there could be some shuffling within that leadership group, and given the excitement of the people, is there any chance of this evolving into an electoral victory, and perhaps a significant change in due course?
I'm not talking about the period following the election, but the stage might be set for change. I say this because we know in Canada that the original revolution started by the students in Iran was hijacked by the religious community, and that 70% of the public out there is still more in tune with that original revolution than the current one.