Let me just make a couple of remarks, then maybe Don may wish to add.
Beyond where we go with the Mercosur conversation, I think what we want to do is to really build this relationship as the anchor relationship in South America. For all the reasons we've mentioned, we have to be engaged in Brazil. In a way, Brazil is at a tipping point, like China in the 1990s, and just about to take off. That's where Brazil is going, it's clear, and we want to be part of that conversation. We want to have our companies there. But as we saw during the Prime Minister's visit, it's really a whole-of-government relationship and a much larger conversation than just trade and investment.
The wonderful thing about a country like Brazil--which is as big, as important, as a regional international player like Canada--is that there's tremendous scope to go in many directions as Brazil changes and Canada changes. I would point out that this was a country that received $150 million in CIDA assistance over the years, when it was not a middle-income country. Now we're working with Brazil to develop cooperation in third countries. Now we can share best practices on aid effectiveness, with Brazil as a donor. Brazil is a major donor in Africa. Brazil has more embassies in Africa than the United Kingdom does. They are all over Africa. So we can have a conversation with them now about shared interests there, on aid cooperation and trade, just as examples.
If you look at the nature of the agreements that we've signed with Brazil, it reflects a much larger, much more intensive relationship that will obviously lead itself to other gains as well in the trade and investment sector. And because we're establishing so many networks and links in that country bilaterally, these will, in turn, rebound well for us and give us opportunities on the trade and investment side.
The other important outcome of that visit was the personal relationship that was developed, because as you know, sir, personal relationships matter. The Prime Minister had very good meetings with the new President of Brazil. She's a very dynamic individual, and comes from an immigrant family that settled in Brazil. She has some very different views from President Lula, and we can already see a strong interest on her part in engaging with us. The personal dynamic is set: the foreign minister is coming here next year, and we expect the President of Brazil to come next year or the year after.
So it's a multiplier effect once you engage with a country like that. We're very encouraged by that.
We didn't mention the Governor General's visit as well. The Prime Minister announced that our Governor General will go to Rio in the spring with a group, which now looks to be 30 Canadian university presidents, as part of the Association of Universities and Community Colleges. He will go to Rio, possibly Brasilia, and elsewhere in the region. So this is really another high-level engagement that can only be of benefit in the longer term.