Foreign Affairs committee  Grand finale.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, you can certainly make that argument. The point is, if you look at the demographic trends in Africa, as you know, it's going to be exponential in terms of population and in terms of need. There is a real role for Canada there. I would add that we are in a unique position in terms of two smaller organizations, which are the OIF—the Francophonie—and the Commonwealth, where we are the second-largest contributor, at least in terms of our dues, though not necessarily in terms of voluntary contributions.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's hard to navigate all of that. The four current deputy ministers have a great deal of experience in international affairs. I'm talking about the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and the deputy minister of International Trade. In fact, he worked at the Department of Finance.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can offer an opinion on that as an individual. I think locally engaged staff are very important to our government operations outside of Canada. However, each case is different, because they are normally citizens of other countries. There are also a lot of Canadians who have a second citizenship, as you know, from other countries such as France or the United States.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure. I'm delighted that you would pick a quotation that was taken from a committee that I was chairing.

Foreign Affairs committee  We have embarked, in the Senate, on an Africa study. I know work is going on within the department. I know Mr. Oliphant is directly involved in that. We thought it would be useful to look at that, so we are going to do a deep dive. We have just started. As you know with your own background, it has to be more than official development assistance.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Bergeron, thank you for your questions and your kind words. This is really a problem in the department. When we talk about recruitment, we should receive, ab initio, training in an official language, either English or French. That practice has been discontinued over the years.

Foreign Affairs committee  The report has to be approved by the Senate. After that, we're waiting—

Foreign Affairs committee  I thought these problems only existed in the Senate.

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay. We were into the generalist versus specialist discussion. In our travels and fact-finding studies in other countries, we discovered that Canada is by no means alone in this. You can have a specialist, for example, on arms control or on nuclear safety, which can get very specific, and on development, human rights—you name it.

Foreign Affairs committee  I often get asked that by the academic institutions. Once we launched the report, I went to the Norman Paterson School here and then to the Munk School in Toronto as well, and there are many young people who are eager to get in. With the foreign service exam in the past, all you needed to do was to pass the exam and have Canadian citizenship, but the exam that was being offered was very much like a SAT, if you know what this is, or an LSAT.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're absolutely right. Diplomacy does have a role there. In fact, the Canadian trade commissioner service predates the creation of the old Department of External Affairs—it goes back to the 1880s—so, at most of our missions abroad and certainly at headquarters, there is a component that looks at trade promotion but also at investment.

Foreign Affairs committee  As you know, I'm not with the government. At some point, the government will have to respond to our report, and that is not one of our recommendations. There's a reason that it's not one of our recommendations. I think you can have designated ambassadors for different functions.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. As you noticed, we didn't make a specific recommendation on resource allocation. It is really up to the government, the minister and the department how you want to do that. I referred in my remarks to the 10-year dearth of new hires. As a result, you have the average age of a foreign service officer at 47—in my previous life, I started in my 20s—so it's very difficult to build a career or to focus on a generalist or specialist thing.