Foreign Affairs committee  That pretty well covers it. We make sure, however, that we have special training, as was mentioned, because these are the most difficult cases to deal with. Depending on the context, we also have special links with hospitals, medical specialists, and NGOs.

Foreign Affairs committee  Because all the local contexts are different, it's important that we provide them with the right counsel. In this case, this is the list of local counsel. Usually we are able to steer them toward someone who has a specialty in this area. This is the person who should be handling

Foreign Affairs committee  We have a special unit within consular operations that deals with this type of issue. The first thing that the left-behind parent will have is someone who they can contact in Foreign Affairs at the federal level who can help them navigate this difficult situation. Of course, loca

Foreign Affairs committee  As Ms. Jeffrey mentioned, we have a special agreement with the Australians. We also have three agreements, as far as I know, where we have other countries that are called our “protecting powers”, that are in countries where we cannot be. Each protecting power agreement is slightl

Foreign Affairs committee  Each protecting power agreement is different, but what it comes down to is communication between the protecting power and us. We will ask them, either through informal or formal channels, to carry out a particular consular service for us, for example, to go visit someone in priso

Foreign Affairs committee  We did in fact after a point in time get consular access to Mr. Khadr, but these visits were kept completely separate from the more problematic visits from Canadian officials.

Foreign Affairs committee  I can't tell you exactly what he requested during the visits. I can tell you that he did have consular access and had access to a consular officer.

Foreign Affairs committee  I was going to say exactly that. The location is often a factor with complexity, but there are other factors, such as the nature of the charges against someone, limited consular access, or whether there's been a miscarriage of justice or human rights issue.

Foreign Affairs committee  In some instances, the Chinese government does not recognize people to be Canadian citizens who we believe are Canadian citizens, and that's where there is sometimes a problem.

Foreign Affairs committee  The only hypothetical instance in which we wouldn't offer consular services is if we thought we were putting our officers in danger. However, my experience is that any time that has been the case, we have found creative ways to offer consular services. I know of no cases for whic

Foreign Affairs committee  We've certainly worked since 2012 on improving consular services, looking at ways that we can improve what we're doing, on the case of mistreatment in particular. We have been constantly improving the system since 2012.

Foreign Affairs committee  We work extensively with other departments when necessary. I mentioned earlier, for example, the one point of contact for cases of abducted children. That's a network that we use. We reach out to other government departments quite often, for our complex cases in particular, so we

Foreign Affairs committee  The other thing I would add is that we're also building our network with the provinces. We're unusual in that we are a service provider face to face in the Department of Foreign Affairs, but often have to interface with the social agencies in the provinces. That is an important n

Foreign Affairs committee  Something we've become aware of in recent years is that we can't just stop providing services when people arrive at the border. I was talking about the links that we've developed with provincial authorities, and we have worked very hard to make sure that we have the proper links

Foreign Affairs committee  First of all, we work with the local authorities in the country, those in charge of child services, to make sure that there is some kind of care in place for the child, whether it be with other family members or with the local authority. Then we would work with the appropriate ch