House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 43% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has been very clear. He has had discussions with President Hu. He is at the top of the book paying respect to the earthquake victims in China. We have a diplomatic engagement that is ongoing and getting, if anything, more intense. I am sure that the Prime Minister will be a big part of this engagement as we go forward.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, I have been to China half a dozen times in the last three or four years. We have had numerous ministerial visits. Our trade numbers are growing rapidly. China is now our number two export market. It is our number two trading partner. I was over in China last week and had very good meetings with a very good reception.
If the hon. member or Mr. Harder believe that we should not be expressing Canada's views on human rights and the treatment of certain individuals in consular cases, the government has made it very clear that we are going to carry on a dialogue. We are going to engage China and we are going to call a spade a spade where we have issue.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, it is clear that Canada has abolished the death penalty and Canada is also active in a multilateral context to pursue the elimination of the death penalty around the world. I can only say yes.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for his kind comments a little earlier. He is getting a little agitated now but I forgive him.
The answer to his question is yes, I will take a personal interest in this particular scholarship program. I want to assure the hon. member that there is a tremendous amount of work ongoing right now to develop and enhance various policies to enable Canada to attract more international students and to ensure Canadian students have a greater opportunity to attend foreign educational institutions.
It is a global economy with global value chains and it will be increasingly important for Canadians, and Canadian young people in particular, to be able to work not only here in Canada but abroad, and international education and experience will be a critical priority.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, that embargo is an American embargo. Canada does not have an embargo. We are watching the Cuban situation as the regime evolves and changes. We are hopeful there will be changes for the better toward human rights and democratic governments.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, on the Barrick question, we have had numerous discussions with numerous companies and numerous groups of civil society and so on, both during the round table process and since. I would not want to say that there is any secret about that. It is our obligation to ensure we are getting a balanced set of views and we do undertake to get those views. I do not control the timing on the finalization of this report.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, as I said earlier, the government is not standing still on corporate social responsibility. We have adopted through a variety of mechanisms. We have the guidelines under the OECD. The G-8 are working on a series of corporate responsibility guidelines in a number of areas.
We are certainly dealing with countries multilaterally to ensure that Canada is taking a leadership position but doing so in a way that ensures Canada is working on a consistent set of principles that would be applied not only by Canada, but by other of our trading partners.
We are moving ahead on corporate social responsibility. I am not going to give a specific timeframe right now but we are certainly getting very close.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, the answer is yes, we do have that information and we do report on it. If it has not been made available, I will follow up and find out what the reason might be.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, the hon. member will know that our foreign policy, our embassies, our consulates and our missions abroad are very much focused on human rights, on governance, on rule of law, as well as trade, commercial and consular matters. That would be something that we would get ongoing routine information and updating on.
The United Nations, of course, provides probably a more robust systematic database, but certainly we are watching that at all times.
Business of Supply May 29th, 2008
Mr. Chair, we are in the process of finalizing the documents and materials and taking them through an appropriate decision making process. We will be briefing the parliamentary committee shortly. All the information the hon. member seeks will be available I would think by summer. I look forward to taking the committee through the plans.
With regard to the people who are there, we have a very good strong team of public servants from across government. They are there on what we call a rolling start program to start to get our feet on the ground and to get our capacity in place to dramatically enhance our civilian and developmental presence in Afghanistan. We will take him through that once we have the material completed.