Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today to provide some insight into the topic we're currently studying.
Professor Leuprecht, thank you for coming from Kingston to be here with us today.
I want to ask you about what Canada's involvement can be in helping to eliminate the corruption that still exists within Ukraine. What I witnessed and I took away from our visit last month was something quite unique in that the revolution and the anti-corrupt movement really seems to be coming from the bottom up, in that it is a grassroots movement. What appeared to still have the most corruption embedded within it was at the top level: the government, the politicians, the department heads.
I asked a very interesting question when we were there, at least I thought it was interesting, about the number of individuals who had been charged. The response was, “We have investigated 800 people”, but they didn't tell me how many had been charged or actually convicted, I should say, because it's actually very few.
What can Canada's role be in helping with that? With everything else that's going on with the current conflict, at some point there must come a collision between this grassroots movement and the corruption that still exists. Where do you see that going, and where do you see Canada's role could be in helping with that?