Yes, absolutely.
The first thing is to work with the international community to help us do everything possible to stop the use of the voting machines. Not only is the system prohibited by law, but it is also not set out in the electoral calendar, which refers to the ordering and printing of traditional ballots. We need to make that happen at all costs.
As for the electoral roll, we would like Canada to send a team of experts to replace the one currently in the DRC.
Allow me to explain. It isn't that we don't have confidence in the team of experts who are there. I'd like to give you an example, though, of how they work. Imagine that they just told you that the electoral roll contained eight million fake voters—that was their finding, after all. Then, imagine your shock when they tell you that, despite the finding, the electoral roll is still inclusive and people can still participate in the election. You can appreciate how strange that is.
After doing some checking of our own, we noted that it was always the same experts who were coming and that they were invited by General Sangaré. On the surface, I have no reason to doubt these individuals since I have no evidence. I do think, however, that with the same IOF experts coming to the DRC time and time again, they have formed relationships with representatives of the regime in power and, as a result, are on rather friendly terms with Mr. Sangaré.
As a member of the IOF, Canada could, for instance, send its own delegation of experts; it could ask the IOF to replace the current delegation with experts from Canada, who would then travel to the country. These would be new people who would have no ties to any party members and who could do their work impartially.
You mentioned training witnesses. We support that. If Canada were to quickly make a decision in favour of that, even if just to help us educate those who would do the witness training, we could move forward on it. We might then be able to handle the rest, working on the ground to pass on the training we had received from you to the witnesses. It's important to monitor the process as of now, before it gets started. The real battle will be monitoring the process throughout and, especially, afterwards.
You have experience in the DRC; you saw how they stole victory from us in 2011. Everything happened after the elections, when the results were being reported. You know that ballots were destroyed by the box load. That's what we're trying to keep from happening this time around. It would help if we had witnesses with access to the results the day of, even if the ballots were later destroyed. At least, we would have some record of the ballots, and we could then prove that we had won the elections.
Thank you, Ms. Vandenbeld, for your comment. It was right on the money.