I'd like to ask our guest a couple of questions, but first I wanted to make a comment, or just an observation, on the response to my friend's questions with regard to what assistance would be most useful.
My experience is very limited. I would humbly suggest, though, that if this is a new democracy, there needs to be bureaucratic mentorship, if I can call it that. It's very informal, but it's key. I was one of the mentors who worked post-apartheid in the country of Namibia, in the city of Tsumeb. They didn't even understand how to do practical things like administrating waste management and a landfill. They didn't understand the concept of nursing homes or women's and children's centres.
It wasn't about the ideology of it; it was about “how do we do it?” They'd say, “Yes, that's a good idea, but how do we do it?” As all of us in this room know, we have a lot of strengths, and I would suggest that there needs to be a similar project.
That project was through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the federal government in the 1990s, obviously post-apartheid, in 1996. So much of the accomplishments and the work done were because of Canadians sharing information. In this day and age, you don't even have to go there physically.
We had people coming here. We taught them a host of things. I don't want to go on, but I think that bureaucratic mentorship, with senior bureaucrats and senior administration, is huge, including just the example of how to roll something out, how to do it. Otherwise, you're stuck with the stability of a military junta; even though it wasn't desirable, it's stability versus instability, and that's huge.
That gets back to the instability issue. I wanted to get a better feel for this. I know that we're moving forward in a positive direction with democracy, but do we really see some headway being made there in how they'll eventually address the Rohingya? I know that right now, Aung San Suu Kyi is not even using the term. Mind you, I'm sensitive to the fact that the government has only been in office for three weeks, but in the past there has been a dilemma known as “can't leave, can't stay”.
I'm just wondering what you're hearing in the wind. Do you think that not even broaching the subject or not even using the phrase is political? It's not just because they're unsympathetic to the plight of these people, right?