Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There's an exaggeration of the numbers. There is an exaggeration in the description. There is—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  —of the numbers that are witnessed here.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We're talking about 60,000 or 40,000 living in Eritrea—the numbers fluctuate. Since independence, more people have returned to Eritrea than have fled from Eritrea. Eritrea had a population of two million people and now has a population of four million people. The number of retu

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you for the question. The only statistics we have are the statistics available for the Eritrean government. I'm not a source of them, but because we follow these issues, they are issues at heart. The government has immobilized 110,000 soldiers. For the ones who work at Ne

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's stated here there's no peace and no war. If Eritrea is not in compliance with the treaty obligations, it's not because a tiny bit of ground has not been returned to Eritrea. It's the threat that it poses to security and peace. If there are no confidence-building measures bet

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Our recommendation to the government whenever we can talk, when the officials come here, is that though we may not be able to have the institutions of the west, we need to move forward to save the next generation from this huge migration. It's not only an Eritrean migration. It's

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to explore that side. The diaspora tax—the original name in the Tigrinya language was the healing and rehabilitation tax—was established as a request from the diaspora. The issue of social justice was a prominent issue after independ

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I apologize.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I apologize for taking too long.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We are a coalition of many communities across Canada. We are not homogeneous in Eritrean politics or Canadian politics. We have people from all views in every aspect of political life. One thing is that there is a common baseline about national issues in Eritrea because all of th

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Our connection would be a connection to the community of the motherland, not to the government of Eritrea per se.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I believe it's a matter of assessment on the ground. As Eritrean Canadians, we would like to promote better communication between Canada and Eritrea in order to have that assessment on the ground done in a better way. We believe that some of this information, if not really seen o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are four Canadian companies right now.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, in mining....

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Specifically with regard to the human rights special rapporteur, 300 communities all over the world requested to report and meet with the special rapporteur. The special rapporteur denied access to 300 communities all over the world, Eritrean communities, and got her evidence fro