Foreign Affairs committee  I guess the starting point here should always be that the consular service represents the Canadian in difficulty overseas. That's our function. That's our responsibility in government, and no one else in government has that responsibility. The RCMP or CSIS or the Canada Border S

Foreign Affairs committee  You touched on what I consider to be one of the great weaknesses in our consular services. I don't think it's by design or anything like that. It's, first of all, the size of the country. Sometimes a telephone call just will not do it the way sitting down and talking face to face

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the key one is the obligation of another state to provide support to the country's nationals in difficulty in that country. The most serious part of all of this, of course, is the people who are arrested and in jail, and some sort of a judicial process is under way for th

Foreign Affairs committee  Could you just...? I missed a couple of words.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that would be asking the international system for a large give. Going back 10 or 15 years, there was an international movement to basically do away with the death penalty in any number of countries, but in the last 10 to 15 years, more countries have added the death pen

Foreign Affairs committee  I would hope so, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  The Auditor General did look at this issue in 2008, made some comments in the report, and suggested that Foreign Affairs should be more assiduous in terms of its accounting in this particular area. My own view, without saying anything about accountants generally, is that accounta

Foreign Affairs committee  What it should be, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, because the fee is mandatory. You have to pay the consular service fee at the same time that you make your application for a passport.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would see the need for it not so much in how individual cases are dealt with, but to guarantee that all Canadians receive consular services. That's the important element, because I think what has occurred in recent years is that decisions were made as to whether some Canadians

Foreign Affairs committee  The full answer is in that paper next week. I'll make sure the committee gets a copy. Essentially, it's an issue in terms of the non-payment of ransoms. When I was working in the foreign service, I think I dealt with well over a hundred such cases, and we never lost a Canadian du

Foreign Affairs committee  That's it exactly. You've summed it up quite well.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, any number of people have been released from the same situations. Two of the people who were kidnapped at the same time as Mr. Hall and Mr. Ridsdel were released subsequent to the murder of the two Canadians. What I'm talking about is the process that one goes through her

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend the committee for undertaking this examination of the provisions of assistance by the government to Canadians. It is the first time, certainly in my memory that such an examination has taken place, and I think my memory is probably longer than