I think, as Dr. Shaheed said, it's very important to understand that there is a civil society in Iran, which is an entirely different political space, and that the Canadian government should include in its restoration of diplomatic relations people-to-people diplomacy.
We have in Canada a very large number of Iranian students, for example, and we have different means of trying to influence that growing public space.
I think in that regard, the total isolation of Iran has served the interests of the hard-liners. The more that Iranian civil society is cut off from the rest of the world, the better it serves the interests of hard-liners who want to keep people backwards and disengaged and isolated.
I also want to explain that sometimes symbolic gestures can go a very long way. For example, a delegation from the European Union visited Iran a few months ago and they insisted on meeting with Miss Nasrin Sotoudeh, who I mentioned in my testimony.
She is, if you like, Iran's Nelson Mandela. We had a question about gender discrimination. The biggest heroes of human rights in Iran are women like Shirin Ebadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh. The fact that the delegation insisted on meeting her very seriously irritated the Iranian government, but it sent a signal that these are the rules for re-engagement with the European Union.
I know that within the European Union there is also a big fight now among those who want human rights to be an ingredient and those who want to sweep it under the carpet.
In that sense, Canada can do a lot that may be of a purely symbolic nature, in addition to having programs that reach out to students, labour unions, women's groups, and environmental groups. That's why the gradual opening, if it is skilfully exploited, can actually help empower those progressive forces, which I think will reshape the future of the country.