Thank you.
Thank you all for coming.
As you know, I'm the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Burma. We have about 40 members from all parties in the House and the Senate. I just came back from Burma not long ago and saw how serious it is. One of the leaders I met with was assassinated a couple of weeks later in the same room where we had met.
I'd like to know from Micheline and Tin, first of all, if you support the work we're doing. In particular, the government has done some great things, as you said--both aid and sanctions are very appreciated over there--but there are some more steps now that we've come up with that we'd like the government to take. I'd just like to ask Micheline and Tin if you would support those steps.
One step is we had a press conference not long ago that the political prisoners should be freed and monitored by an independent agency. Other steps: speak out against the sham referendum and election that are coming up starting in May, which the Zaw monks of Ontario and we are working on; lobby China and India and of course Thailand, behind closed doors, on the things they can do--they can do the most, because they have the most economic ties; help the parliamentary federation union of Burma in exile with their constitution, which they asked me for when I was over there, which wouldn't cost much; and help them lobby for a UN political presence in Rangoon.
Foreign aid, of course, as you mentioned, hopefully would be increased. We give hundreds of millions to Darfur, Palestine, and Afghanistan, and we only give $2 million a year there. The rice has gone up twice since they've done their budget. They're really starving. It's very needed.
We could make recommendations on the horrible labour conditions and any actions we could take on the large dams and pipelines that could be funded by China or Thailand. In Burma it would give all sorts of revenue to the dictatorship.
And finally, we could lobby the ASEAN countries to really help their member friend in Burma.