Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm very pleased to hear several references to the importance of really ensuring that what is being acted upon is a Haitian-based consensus. There's nothing more dangerous than someone who goes to a country for four or five days and comes back thinking they understand it.
I had the opportunity, with some of my colleagues, to be in Haiti just prior to Préval's inauguration. What I found deeply disturbing, frankly, was not only the history to which you've made some reference, but also an almost artificial sense of an NGO civil society that seemed to be on a very short leash, and some of it quite obviously created by external or exogenous forces. And you had the sense that if Haiti just didn't quite move in lockstep with, I think, largely American notions of what that should be, probably the leash would be yanked, or any funding would be cut off.
I have so many questions.
The desperate need for material improvement--I mean genuine improvement in the quality of life, which means jobs, which means infrastructure--seems to be something that's quite easily agreed upon. The question is how to make that happen in a rapid enough way that it can actually create some successes before people become very disillusioned.
I was surprised to hear--I believe it was Mr. Graham who said it--that perhaps some of the environmental priorities would have to wait, because one of the things that seemed quite persuasive to me, anyway, in hearing what was needed, was the desperate need for environmental remediation. In fact, I think it was one of our own military officers who made quite a stark statement that even if you could ensure the security, unless we can move rapidly to deal with all of this erosion resulting from the deforestation and the tremendous problems of safe water and waste management, and so on, basically you're creating an unsustainable society that simply cannot survive, let alone thrive.
The second priority that there was some mention of is roads. It seems pretty obvious that there is a serious problem about even moving produce to markets domestically, let alone internationally, unless that is addressed.
And the third priority was something you referred to, which is the low salaries for police officers. We were hearing again and again about literally no salaries for months and months. The suggestion was made again and again that unless that was remedied almost immediately, there is no possibility of putting an end either to the corruption within the security forces, or to the various thefts, muggings, kidnappings, and so on, because people are starving and their families are starving.
I wonder if you could comment on those three priorities, which seem pretty evident. What are the roadblocks? What can Canada do to try to help with whatever processes need to get under way to actually produce some kinds of results?
Three simple questions....