Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank our guests. I actually found this very informative.
I concur with you, Mr. Chair, that we request from them some of their prescriptive points, and I'm sure they will want to provide us with that.
We had an interesting presentation at the last committee meeting. One of the things that was established was that we don't have a law in place that obligates our officials to provide consular services. We've heard today that there is a need to ensure clarity. There is a need to coordinate services. There's a need to have some sort of understanding for Canadians when they are in those situations that Mr. Champ underlined and Mr. Neve certainly referenced in terms of the work that his organization has done, and that is really what has to happen here. We don't want to have at this committee wave upon wave of cases when we know there are prescriptions for these problems.
I'm just going to thank our guests for what they've done and look forward to any follow-up they have, because I think it is time that we do something, and I certainly mentioned that in the summer.
I'm going to take the opportunity, Mr. Chair, to move a motion. The notice of motion was provided to the clerk. It reads:
That, in the context of its study on the treatment of Canadians abroad, the Committee report the following recommendations to the House of Commons calling on the government to:
Recognize its constitutional duty to protect Canadian citizens abroad;
Enact legislation to ensure the consistent and non-discriminatory provision of consular services to all Canadians in distress; and
Create an independent ombudsperson's office responsible for monitoring the government's performance and ordering the Minister of Foreign Affairs to give protection to a Canadian in distress if the Minister has failed to act in a timely manner.
I would like to move that motion, Mr. Chair, and thank our guests for their interventions today.