To our best understanding, and it is an assessment and an estimate to a large extent, there are concerns about prisoners of conscience or political prisoners remaining in detention. There could be hundreds—our estimate is up to 1,000, but these are estimates.
The real question, and I guess why we are here today, is what can we do in order to encourage, facilitate, and assist in democratic development and change? The suspension of sanctions enables us to engage with these issues. Whether that is a question of losing influence or gaining influence remains to be seen; we don't know yet. But the enthusiasm that the world has shown, that Canadians have shown, that our allies and people in those countries have shown for the opening up of Burma to democratic principles, the espousal, apparently sincere, backed up by actions that show a willingness to implement democratic legislation, to entertain debate in their Parliament.... For the first time ministers are answering questions on fundamental issues of poverty alleviation, principles of freedom and justice. So they're doing the right things. That is to be encouraged, and we hope to engage with them to encourage it more.