Foreign Affairs committee  Good afternoon, everyone. At the outset, I'd like to beg your indulgence. I arrived last night from Madrid where I gave a talk involving Spain and Canada and dealing with cooperation with Latin America. I'm suffering a bit from jet lag. One interesting point for this committee, t

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll send something in writing. However, with regard to instability, it depends on the situation. If the reworking of the constitution also includes a change to allow a second consecutive presidential term, which some fear, then, yes, we will have major problems. If it's limite

Foreign Affairs committee  Sure. In terms of economic growth and investment, there has been quite a bit of success in Haiti. He mentioned the Gildan plant; we also have the free trade zone operating—Ouanaminthe, in the north, along the Dominican border—and cell phone companies: we have four companies in

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't have exact numbers, but we did talk about this extensively with Mario Andresol, who's the police chief. He mentioned that they're making special efforts to recruit women. They had problems in the past recruiting. They've changed recruitment tactics, and he said they've ha

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The committee has changed a little since the last time I was here. It's indeed a pleasure to be here for the second time to speak with the committee about Colombia and the Canada-Colombia free trade agreemen

International Trade committee  Moving right along....

International Trade committee  So the agreement is good for Colombia. The Colombians are anxious to have the agreement signed, for several reasons, and are looking forward to it. Trade will grow. We've seen this with other countries with whom we've signed agreements. Trade has grown with these countries after

International Trade committee  Professor Mejía is actually in Washington. I'm not going to try to recreate his regression analysis for you or go through the charts and diagrams, but if you want a deeper explanation of this, I'm sure he'd be happy to come up here if you'd like to have him run through the econom

International Trade committee  That's an interesting question. With some polling data you could take an analysis of the media. You would have to run two things like that to try to come up with an objective answer, so in objective terms I would be hard pressed to say. Like everyone else, I have an opinion and s

International Trade committee  Everything that can be done in that regard will be of assistance, but it will not turn the tide. Poverty and inequality are major issues throughout the hemisphere. I would never say that one trade agreement is going to turn this around, but certainly it's an incremental step, and

International Trade committee  Well, if you want to base it in a western perspective, you could go back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche: you feel better about yourself if you're giving. This is your largesse, and it's about helping people, but it's also about making you feel better. Trade doesn't give you the

International Trade committee  That is correct.

International Trade committee  That is the case for all similar organizations in Canada.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. We have not done such a study or carried out a study. The interesting thing about Colombia is that there are groups in Colombia that are independent, strong organizations and have the capacity to do this work. Colombia is still developing, but the f

International Trade committee  The comments were in the context of Mr. Brison's question about the larger debate about free trade and the Colombian agreement. I was referring to discussions in the United States. The author's obvious point of reference, the point from which you would start, would be the larger