Just to pick up on that, one of the things we've seen in South Sudan that I discussed prior to our intervention there with Nicholas Coghlan, our ambassador there—fabulous guy— was media development. This is one of the ways we can effectively create internal pressure loops on those authorities and internal feedback loops to ensure that some of the individuals in authority in the Congo actually move on these different files.
What we saw in South Sudan was a hopeless situation when we went in. It looked like every NGO was initially going to be taxed with a $10,000 tax just operate in the country. We went in, and the president was on record calling for people to shoot journalists for reporting against the state. A day later a journalist was shot in the back.
Fast forward three years. The media authority committed at a forum organized by the Canadian government and Journalists for Human Rights to uphold the media laws and ensure that media and journalists could practice their craft safely and securely. That's Canadian action and leadership in South Sudan.
In DRC when we convened that forum, that was Canadian leadership leading media development in the Congo. The following week I met with the head of the volet, the French attaché who coordinates millions of dollars of media development in the DRC.
He said, “I don't get it. You've organized this forum, you have coverage across the country as well as internationally. There's a national commitment now amongst journalists to support one another against situations of threat, and we weren't even involved.” I said, “Yes, well, you were invited.” He said that this puts Canada in a unique leadership position because we're not regarded in that environment as an imperial presence. We are regarded as a middle power, an honest broker who can form these coalitions and create action.
When governments say that they're not going to accept aid or assistance in order to facilitate elections, that's a bluff. It's up to us to call that bluff.