Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for receiving us.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You said we could share our experiences as far as immigration policy is concerned. We don't have any experience, in comparison to your tradition and history and what is happening right now. We are willing to learn from you, because we are aware that Europe is lacking in immigrant

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Our ambassador and counsel to the committee.... As you just heard, Mr. Vilén is from Lapland, where Santa Claus lives. If you have any wishes, you can tell him.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On my background, I was Minister of Labour. I'm the mother of the first immigration law in Finland. Now it would be interesting to hear how your committee works. You said that you are finalizing some core points of your immigration law.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's 5.3 million, and we have calculated that a little bit more than one million Finns reside abroad. We know that in Canada--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In 100 years, of course. But Canada has quite a big Finnish population. Some of our relatives are in Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Learning about this issue is one--as Jari mentioned, in nearly all ratings, as far as competitiveness is concerned, standards of schools, we are number one in the world. But we receive very, very little foreign investment. One researcher said it's due to an aging population, due

Citizenship and Immigration committee  To work and....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I have a small present from the Finnish Parliament. It's our national symbol. It's a lion. We have no lions, but it's a symbol.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. Perhaps we have given too pessimistic a picture of Finland. That's not what it's like, actually. It's a marvellous country, and we welcome all Canadians to come to Finland.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for your kind words. Your family name sounds like a very Nordic name; that's why we feel so comfortable here. Thank you very much for making this meeting possible. I remember that it was a Canadian professor, Marshall McLuhan, who predicted that the world

Foreign Affairs committee  Excuse me, Chair, I would like to introduce our ambassador and our counsel to the committee.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. They are really crucial questions. As far as Russia is concerned, Finland and Russia actually have nowadays a very good relationship. There are no major political problems. There are lots of practical problems due to the very busy trade between Finland and R

Foreign Affairs committee  May I ask one question? We are discussing now in Finland how to strengthen the role of Parliament in security and foreign policy issues. In Finland the government presents a white paper every four years. Once you're in your term of office of government, then you give a big pictu

Foreign Affairs committee  In general, the Finnish Parliament is very active in the field of foreign security policy. Earlier we had a constitution. According to the old constitution the president alone led the foreign policy, but now the cooperation between the government and the president is crucial. Tha