Thank you very much.
I thank you very much for being with us today. Whenever we have you here, it reminds us of the tremendously high quality of public service we have in Canada and the quality of people we have in our foreign service.
I want to recognize Ambassador des Rivières, who has been a tremendous partner to members of this committee, for her work as well.
As you know, there will be an amendment tabled at this committee. The government has agreed to support a Liberal amendment that will require a prior written agreement between the governments of Canada and Colombia whereby each country, both Canada and Colombia, will provide annual reports to their respective parliaments on the impact of this FTA on human rights in both Canada and Colombia. Just to make it clear, both countries will be reporting on human rights in both Colombia and Canada.
Your former deputy minister of foreign affairs, Peter Harder, has said the amendment is a
significant innovation in free trade agreements in that it provides both the Colombian and Canadian legislatures the opportunity to annually review and assess the human rights implications of the agreement. I expect that future parliaments will build on this precedent when they consider proposed free trade agreements.
It has also received support from civil society leaders in Colombia and union and labour leaders in Colombia.
I'd like to ask you about the capacity within DFAIT to research, to gather information, and to report on that information respecting human rights in other countries, in countries particularly with whom we have free trade agreements and as it would pertain to Colombia.
I'd also like to ask about the degree to which you work with civil society and NGOs in the collection and gathering of that information, because we want to make sure that NGOs and civil society have an opportunity to feed into and to provide information that helps shape these reports.