Foreign Affairs committee  Currently, our diplomatic footprint is really quite shallow, in my view. I think we have 17 missions and five trade missions on the African continent. Then we have the permanent mission at the African Union. Mr. Chair, one of the things I think we usually miss out on when it comes to Canada's relationship with Africa is regional economic communities.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that Canada should have a three-level diplomatic engagement with the African continent: with African states, with regional economic communities, and with the African Union. In my presentation, I've highlighted that Canada needs to establish a permanent diplomatic missions in other regional economic communities.

Foreign Affairs committee  Part of the reason that Canada has not been doing this has to do with how we entirely shifted our focus to Afghanistan in the early 2010s. If you recall, 2002 was the very first time that Canada invited African leaders to the Kananaskis conference under former prime minister Chrétien.

Foreign Affairs committee  The question is for me. Okay, sure. I'm sorry. I did not catch the first part of the question. I think our priority or our investment in Canada should actually attach on these three areas that I mentioned: security, development and diplomacy. My answer to your question is that we have to go in and see the synergies of these three things.

Foreign Affairs committee  Because I'm not inside the African Union but have more of a business perspective, I can speak to the feedback that we receive at our fora. Increasingly we're seeing a number of other African countries rise to the fore, and we see that sometimes the dominance at the African Union of one particular country may reflect the fact that the leadership of the AU or the chairmanship at that time is allocated to a specific country.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we would do well to respect.... I think there's nothing wrong with that, but that's a long-term play, because I think right now the African Union, and certainly African leaders, are keen to have that technological and technical exchange. We saw that in some of the contributions from Canada to the development of the African continental free trade area.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. I would say that in many areas where you see instability, there's often a lot going on that's a bit of a proxy, which is quite good to go down into. This doesn't speak to this particular case, but we've encountered mining communities where we speak to a local Canadian company that says, "Look, we weren't actually affected by this transition, because the community in which we operate is very happy with what's going on."

Foreign Affairs committee  Canada certainly has a large number of free trade agreements globally, and I think that is something that is really admired in a free-trading country, which is what we are. It's in that context that in conversations at the African Union that I alluded to, there's a great interest in having Canadian expertise participate in the ongoing implementation of the African continental free trade area.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me. I'll be honest and frank in my comments. Let me begin by congratulating the committee for this important study on Canada's approach to Africa. It is a clear sign of renewed commitment towards the continent. Mr. Chair, Canada is at least two decades behind when it comes to deepening its engagement on the African continent.