Foreign Affairs committee  My colleague Ms. Norton will speak to the humanitarian piece. To characterize our efforts, I would refer to my statement, in which I said we are engaged in a long-term political and diplomatic engagement with Iraq that includes the kinds of support you heard about in the statement.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, honourable members, for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm going to start by giving you an overview of the state of affairs in Iraq and Syria, and then speak to the Government of Canada's activities that aim to oppose ISIL, to help the Iraqi people, and to support the Government of Iraq.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think both sides can build confidence through various measures, including outside players stopping providing military support to one side or the other. That would be very, very important. A ceasefire would be a very big confidence-building measure. My statement also alluded to the strong possibility that we might see the opposite in the run-up to Geneva II.

Foreign Affairs committee  We meet regularly, but I can't say we've had a specific meeting around whether or not to have a resettlement program. That's something where they've already established clear direction. That hasn't been something we've chosen to meet on, because we haven't been directed to do so.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'd say three things give one hope. One is that there's been diplomatic progress of late in the Middle East. The Iran nuclear agreement and the agreement to destroy Syria's chemical weapons shows that these parties can get to a deal under certain circumstances. Finally, I can say, as someone who served in Syria many years ago, that Syrian people are fantastic people.

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't have that number, but I think it's a small number. I wouldn't want to mislead you by guessing, but we can get you that information.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, indeed.

Foreign Affairs committee  Its principal outcome was a set of agreed-to principles to guide these future rounds. So far, those principles are meant to be the price of admission to this next round. At a minimum, parties around the table, be they Syrian or be they international partners, would have to agree to these basic principles as the price of admission.

Foreign Affairs committee  We have not set up a resettlement program for Syrian refugees. This is in large part at the request of neighbouring countries and the UN itself, which doesn't want to set up a dynamic where Syrians will find themselves incentivized to leave the country. Syria needs to be rebuilt by Syrians.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a small number by comparison with our biggest resettlement program in the world, which is for Iraqi refugees in Syria. That is upwards of 20,000. That program is pushing towards completion. So by comparison, 1,200 is what I would characterize as a small number.

Foreign Affairs committee  We've seen these kinds of statements before. We haven't seen a concerted effort on the ground that would suggest this is taking place, and that would suggest almost a three-front war. We've seen occasional clashes, and I mentioned that in my statement, but to date, it looks like those clashes are less ideological, in the sense of a concerted attempt to go after the extremists, and more about opposition groups staking their claim over their territory.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can talk a bit about it, but I can't talk more than that because, in part, we don't know, and in part, some of what we might say would be classified. There are two different streams. There's funding going to, let's say, the Muslim Brotherhood type of groups from places like Qatar.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Baird has stated clearly that Assad has lost his legitimacy, that Assad should be held accountable for the crimes he's committed, including the use of chemical weapons. However, ultimately, I think our position would be that parties around the table are going to need to define their future, and that future, as far as we would like to see, must include protections for the various minorities in the country that form a rather spectacularly interesting society, very diverse, very multi-ethnic, multi-religious.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, you're pointing at some of the complexity around this particular conference. In short, I could say that we're not yet there. The major players, the Russians, the Americans, and the UN, are working very intensely to try to bring that about. Now, we have problems on both sides.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm going to start with the last point first. We are extremely concerned about money being diverted to the wrong places and the wrong forces, so there is an incredible amount of scrutiny of every possible project that we consider and everything that would go up for approval. I think that in part explains why there has not been more Canadian assistance provided to these groups.