Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Again, it is very late, and I'm very grateful that you've agreed to be with us. It's perhaps a little less late for Dr. Houlden at the University of Alberta, which is, of course, the university that I went to.
Mr. Houlden, I was going to start with you. You talked a little bit about the diplomatic failures. We didn't have an ambassador for nine or 10 months, but I think it's a larger discussion around Canada and Canada's diplomatic commitments, I guess, to diplomacy. In my opinion, we have privileged trade over development, over diplomacy, for far too long.
Can you talk a little bit about what that stagnation looks like, what that lack of investment in our relationship has been and the impacts that have resulted because we have not had an ambassador?