Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today. This is a very important study for the committee as it relates to women.
For my first question, I'm going to go back to last Tuesday. Alan Kessel, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, appeared before our committee and stated, “No, there are no changes in terms”, at DFAIT. On Thursday we had witnesses who gave the committee countless examples of speeches, statements, and documents that have been produced by DFAIT over the past few years that specifically omitted the terms “gender equality”, “child soldier”, and “international humanitarian law”.
Michelle Collins, formerly of Embassy magazine, was kind enough to provide me with a copy of an e-mail to share with the committee, which was sent by Jamieson Weetman, a senior official at DFAIT, to nearly two dozen other DFAIT officials in May 2009. Individuals who received this e-mail included assistant deputy ministers, directors general, directors, and many other senior officials at DFAIT, including the witness who denied there were any changes, Mr. Kessel.
The e-mail states, “Some of you will have already noted over the past few months the tendency” of the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs “to change or remove language from letters, speeches, interventions at multilateral meetings, etc.”. I would like to start by tabling this e-mail for the committee and then ask our witnesses if they think an e-mail of this nature demonstrates that senior officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the language changes that were taking place.