Mr. Jean Ayoub:

I always mute my microphone. I am sorry. I am much more accustomed to seeing my associates speak rather than myself because I am not the expert. I am merely an economist leading this organisation and very proud of its achievement.

The simple answer for me is we cannot give the Senator a timeline. I will give an example that can probably answer or support some of the comments that were made a couple of minutes earlier. Ten days ago, we were at a large meeting in Germany where the federal government was celebrating the 82nd meeting of the socio-legal support activities in the country. In one of the side meetings, I had a couple of high court judges and one child rights expert working with the Ministry of Justice and there was a question similar to what was asked about what if we adopt the surrogacy principles as they are and whether that would be better than having no law at all. The answer, not necessarily from me but from the group, is that in Germany, probably like Ireland - I am not comparing - that has some very advanced and structured laws in terms of child protection and in terms of human rights, there should be some adaptation, upgrades or transformation of current laws in order for the principles to have a better fit in national legislation.

I am a little traumatised by the European level. I discovered this organisation through a couple of Hague Conventions, mainly the 1996 Hague Convention. Then Brussels II was invented and Brussels II bis was invented. If, today, The Hague Permanent Bureau is working on certain principles, it is not ours to initiate something beyond European and more global on regulations for surrogacy. I am not sure if the European model would be better or not.

On behalf of our organisation, I say frankly that we were happy and super excited that we were contacted by this committee for an opinion because this was our first government and if that goes through, we will have more arguments for other countries, European or non-European, to push further with supports and the added value they could have in national legislation.