Foreign Affairs committee  I guess I get to reply first because I'm the white-haired guy. First of all, some people would say that white hair doesn't mean expertise; it means you should be retired and doing something else. Besides, we're trying to develop a new policy here and we don't have time for you people from the past, which indeed may have been the case until today.

Foreign Affairs committee  Dr. Bethune and Dr. MacKay and those role models are important. Whenever I go some place in China--because I sort of have a beard and he had a beard and he's bald--they say I look like Norman Bethune. That always immediately provides some kind of an entrée. Even if many Canadians may not agree with his political thinking, he is seen as the Canadian of great significance in China.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are a whole bunch of questions here. Let me see if I can get at some of them. On the most and least progress in human rights, I think in some ways, law has been the area where we've done a lot, with law and legal aid and so forth. That's very impressive, and we've been doing that for 20 years.

Foreign Affairs committee  First I want to say a bit about the Burton report. I finally read the Burton report, after not seeing it for a long time and hearing all kinds of things about it, and actually first reading the transcript of your committee hearings. What's interesting is that the Burton report is a lot less critical and milder than were the comments made in the hearings by Burton.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Patry. I referred to the lack of transparency in the past as a weakness. I was referring to the report, which, in a sense, talked about a wide range of things. In this case I believe we need to open up the system more. The question is, I'm not sure which report.

Foreign Affairs committee  My thanks to the committee for this invitation to appear before you today. I'm the last person standing in a long parade of witnesses you've had today, and most of the things probably have been said already. But I hope in my brief remarks I can raise a few other points. My remarks are based on encounters with China that I've had over 40-plus years.