Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I want to start by echoing what Mr. Albas said on hostage diplomacy. I think if we go down the road of considering policy concessions in response to hostage diplomacy, then we just invite the massive expansion of that hostage diplomacy and we also limit our ability to ever do anything that's contrary to Chinese state interests. I would really encourage members of the committee to make decisions about what is right and what's in our strategic interests, and protect ourselves and not be victims to this kind of hostage diplomacy calculation.
Mr. Neve, I was very struck by your comments about government inaction around foreign state interference. I look forward to the written follow-up on that, and I hope we as a committee are able to study that issue further and come out with specific recommendations. I know it's an issue that other committees, maybe the public safety committee but also the intelligence review committee, have taken up as well, the issue of foreign state interference and how that impacts Canadians, and their response.
On the immigration piece of this, I'm very concerned that there's a risk that the Chinese state will take action to try to prevent immigration and to prevent the return to Canada of Canadian citizens. We've already seen some noises in this direction in the case of U.K. government policy and a response from China. What do you think the likelihood of that is? As we have called on the Government of Canada to have a plan for facilitating the reunification of Canadians, as well as dealing with the asylum piece of this, what could China do and what could Canada do in response to ensure that reunification and asylum can take place in response to countermeasures?
Ms. Richardson, you could start, and then we'll go to the other two after that.