Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to return to the question of service standards for Canadians who are arrested or detained abroad.
I think for those who might be listening in, and for the record, it's important to note that a lot of times these are not tourists. These are people who have business in those countries, or they're visiting families. From my own experience as an MP, I've had more problems among business people and people visiting their families than among tourists, even though we do have the occasional drunk driver in Hawaii who gets detained. I think it's important to remember that sometimes people don't have a choice about travel, either for business reasons or for family reasons. They need to travel and they need consular services as a result.
When we say that people are usually not visited in person, if you are looking at revising the service standard, might there not be a case for saying that...? Maybe the most diplomatic way is for the default to be that we attempt to see people in person, unless the country is on a list where we haven't had problems. I know you would want to create a list of countries that cause problems.
It's a concern to me, given my own experience of how those in charge of people in custody can manipulate the situation so that those people cannot communicate with you or cannot communicate their real situation through an email or even a phone call. It's very difficult.
Would we give consideration to having a different service standard, based on the risk of detention in those countries? Again, I would suggest we do it by rewarding the good rather than labelling the bad.