Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague from Ottawa Centre for his work on the committee as well. I certainly will not speak for what the government may do in the future in terms the road map or in looking at a centre for democracy. I know that we did commit to an organization for religious freedom. That is one of the things that we are moving forward with. We believe and understand that where the rights of minorities and religious freedom are preserved, democracy also flows from that.
I have some of the figures of what has been contributed recently. I will not go through all of the details, but in 2009-2010 over $117 million was contributed to Mali. In 2010-2011 more than $109 million was contributed. It dropped this past year to $61 million, as we tried to avoid directly funding the government, which we did not think would be responsible, but instead the organizations on the ground. We will continue to do that and look forward to the time when Mali holds elections so that we can again support a government there.