Foreign Affairs committee  We have not been big users of the intern program. I recall, though I will have to check and get the information for you, that some years ago in some of the work we were doing on new technologies, we had an intern working in our South African office. I will have to check on that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll take a stab first at Keith's question and then at Madame McDonough's direct question about the interns. On the question of corruption and the obligation to report, as we know from the Singapore meetings, the World Bank is taking a very strong stand on this question now. Quite surprisingly, some ministers--in fact, the Secretary of State for International Development from the U.K.

Foreign Affairs committee  I wanted first of all to answer Ms. McDonough...

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a really interesting question, and it's also really important to keep a long perspective when we talk about democratic development. If you think about it in terms of our western society, it was a long, long way between the Magna Carta in 1215 and aboriginals finally getting the vote in Canada in 1961.

Foreign Affairs committee  I do not believe so. New technology can also play an important role in basic education. In Africa, for example, organizations such as SchoolNet Africa use new technologies to train school teachers because, as you know, this is a task that, among others, has been complicated by the AIDS epidemic.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to appear before your committee today. And I am pleased to have the opportunity to tell you about the important work being done by Canada's IDRC—the International Development Research Centre. IDRC is a crown corporation that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Foreign Affairs.