Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, colleagues. I will call this meeting to order.

This is meeting 41 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Tuesday, November 24, 2009. Our orders of the day include a return to the committee's study of Bill C-300, an act respecting corporate accountability for the activities of mining, oil or gas in developing countries.

As a witness on our first panel today we have, by video conference from Córdoba, Argentina, the president and founder of the Center for Human Rights and Environment, Ms. Romina Picolotti. We welcome you this morning to our committee and are very grateful to have you with us today.

Also, from Entraide Missionnaire Inc., we have Denis Tougas, the coordinator. Mr. Tougas has appeared before our committee before, I believe, on the Great Lakes region study we did in regard to Africa. Welcome back. It's good to have you back here with us this morning.

Sending his regrets this morning is Robert Ouellette, the editor and chair of the Sierra Club Ontario. He is unable to be here.

We look forward to your comments, Ms. Picolotti. We would invite you to begin by opening with your 10-minute testimony.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, up until six o'clock last night, all the witnesses were to appear together. In light of Mr. Ouellette's regrets, I would suggest that it would be far more efficient and useful if Ms. Evans actually joined the panel at this point. That way, we could have all the witnesses for the entire period of time. That way we'd have some efficiency and some dialogue and some discussion about the important issues before us.

I would offer that as a suggestion in terms of the usefulness of this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

Let me just say, in trying to put this meeting together and trying to understand where a lot of our questions may come from and go to, we decided that it would be a good thing to have Ms. Evans appear by herself. That would give her more opportunity and more time. Last evening the Sierra Club was going to appear as well, which would have put four witnesses before the committee, and it was determined last night that it was going to be too many.

I appreciate that, Mr. McKay, but that's the agenda.

Madame Lalonde.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

While the question asked and the position taken by Mr. McKay are only a suggestion, I'm making them a motion. It seems to me that we'll find it much easier. It should not be forgotten that there is our round, so only 45 minutes at a time to hear one or two persons, and then to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

And Ms. Evans later.

Did you want to put that as a motion?

It's moved that we move them all together.

(Motion negatived)

All right. We'll continue the way that the agenda is presented.

Again, Ms. Picolotti, we welcome you here. Now that we have our housekeeping in order, we look forward to what you have to say.

[Romina Picolotti, President and Founder, Center for Human Rights and Environment]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members of Parliament.

I'm honoured to have the opportunity to speak before the committee on a matter that greatly affects both Canada and Argentina. I speak before you today in two capacities, first as a former Secretary of the Environment of Argentina serving under the previous and present administrations; and second, as the president of the Center for Human Rights and Environment, a globally prized organization over which I now preside, based in Córdoba, Argentina. My position as environment secretary of Argentina was equivalent to a ministerial position in Canada. I was the highest environmental federal authority and I responded directly to the chief of cabinet of ministers and to the President.

It is not unknown to you that irresponsible mining activities are one of the most controversial types of industrial investments. This controversy is why the sort of debate you're having today about Canadian companies operating abroad, financed by Canadian taxpayers, is so important to promote more responsible investment worldwide. I commend you, your country's parliamentarians, for taking on this extremely serious and very difficult debate.

As environment secretary from 2006 to 2008, I focused Argentina on deepening our efforts at environmental protection after decades of mostly environmental interference. Among the many tasks and achievements to note during this period, I might mention having made substantial headway in forestry protection, corporate compliance of environmental codes, the creation of a federal environmental prosecutorial institution, and regulation of environmental insurance, among other issues.

Internationally, my secretariat was extremely active in spearheading climate change negotiations, including proposing, right here in Canada at the Montreal Protocol meeting, critical commitments that were approved to phase out ozone-depleting substances with high global-warming potential. Despite this good news for my country, I'm sorry to say that one of the areas where we had the most difficulty was in the mining sector.

You're obviously aware of the very large mine investments run by Canadian companies like that of Barrick Gold in Argentina. Unfortunately, far from being the beacon model of sustainable mining that we would hope for in the 21st century, Barrick Gold is a modern example of a powerful economic giant that unscrupulously manipulates local politics and is skirting environmental and social controls to maximize profit, minimize investment risk, and ignore local cultures and communities to the detriment of the greater global objectives of sustainable development.

As the former environmental secretary, I can personally attest to Barrick's tactics of obstruction to the control and compliance powers of the state. I have seen Barrick's use of forceful propaganda and traffic of influence on public officials and its intense marketing and PR gimmicks with the local communities. I approached Barrick in 2006 as environment secretary to exercise my jurisdictional authority over the San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO site and national park in the province of San Juan, where Barrick's Veladero mine is located, with the objective of installing contamination-measuring units through the area. Barrick refused to give my team access to the lands in their mining territory and stalled all subsequent efforts to facilitate such entry until weather conditions changed so drastically in the early winter months that my team's work in the area was no longer physically possible.

I had also engaged with provisional and national authorities to attempt to reform the mining code and place the monitoring and control of the impacts of mining activities within the jurisdiction of the secretary of the environment. The mining sector opposed such participation of Argentinian environmental institutions and lobbied the government and the Congress strongly to obstruct these efforts, maintaining jurisdiction of mining operations solely within the mining agencies, whose objective is the promotion of mining, and not environmental controls.

In 2008, the Congress unanimously passed a glacier protection law. The new glacier law would in fact prohibit mining on, under, or in glacier parameters, something that probably sounds quite reasonable to Canadians, as you come from one of the most glacier-rich areas of the world. Well, so do we.

Canadian companies operating in Argentina did not want a glacier protection law to limit their mining prospects and subsequently pressured the President into vetoing the law. If the President would not veto the law, Barrick would work to block other financial bills that were critical to stabilizing the Argentine economy during the global financial crisis. The President capitulated to Barrick's pressure and vetoed the bill, which has become known euphemistically as the Barrick veto.

Barrick has also pushed forward with several controversial mining projects in Argentina and, time and time again, shows that the company acts in bad faith with respect to the social and environmental community concerns that such large mining interests entail. One of Barrick's gold mining ventures, called Pascua Lama, occurs right on top of five glaciers. Unbelievably, Barrick conveniently failed to mention these facts in its original environmental impact assessment. It was only after communities protested the site choice and pointed out the presence of glaciers that Barrick admitted its mining venture was indeed taking place on at least five glaciers. However, by then, and only from prospecting impacts, much of the glaciers had already been severely impacted by Barrick's exploration. There is still strong resistance to the Pascua Lama project from local indigenous and farming communities that are greatly concerned with water management, contamination, and impacts on natural habitat and reserves.

As environment secretary of Argentina, I fought hard for the promotion of sustainable development and for accountability. I confronted many corporate sectors, engaging them in costly but responsible cleanup. Many did not like this intervention, but ultimately they understood that their responsibility to respect human rights and environmental standards was critical to their own survival and sustainability.

The mining sector, I'm sorry to say, responded quite differently from the rest. They were more resistant, more aggressive, and more dangerous. My closest staff and I were personally and physically threatened following our mining intervention. My children were frightened, my office was wire-tapped, my staff was bought, and the public officials that once controlled Barrick for me became paid employees of Barrick Gold. My mission and our mission as a nation to control mining was jeopardized. Ultimately, I was forced to resign due to insurmountable pressure from companies like Barrick Gold, which ultimately get their way when our institutions fail to control their performance and compliance.

As the maximum environmental authority of my country, I have witnessed first-hand that companies like Barrick Gold do not abide by internationally recognized environmental regulations. I have seen human rights violations from the mining sector that would not be tolerated in Canada but are accepted as the cost of doing business in countries like Argentina. This is why it is so important that you continue this debate and find ways to promote accountability of the mining sector from your vantage point. It is also important to understand that the image of Canada is inevitably related to the behaviour of these companies. When Canadian mining companies act in a manner that is not befitting the true Canadian image, the reputation of Canada and its people suffer.

I don't ask you to be against mining; I do ask you to be against impunity. I don't ask you to be against Canadian mining companies; I do ask you to ensure that he Canadian mining companies acting abroad are accountable to your own highest standards. I don't ask you to intrude on the sovereignty of countries that wish to promote the mining industry, but I do plead with you to consider that the decisions you make about holding Canadian companies to account for their behaviour can and do influence the way they will do business.

Even the smallest improvement in an accountability mechanism here in Canada may go a long way to avoid the historical problems that this sector has visited on many populations around the world. I ask you to consider the predicament you have before you and look for ways to influence the behavioural pattern and minimize the impact of the foreign operations of Canadian mining companies financed by your taxpayers.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Picolotti.

We'll now move to Monsieur Tougas.

[Denis Tougas, Coordinator, Table de concertation sur la région des Grands Lacs africains, Entraide Missionnaire Inc.]

Good morning.

Thank you for having me here this morning.

The purpose of my contribution is to demonstrate the benefits that would accrue from implementation of the complaints handling mechanisms proposed by Bill C-300, particularly its ability to assemble information from various sources, based on two specific cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that have been mentioned here on a few occasions.

First, a few words on the expertise of Entraide Missionnaire, which represents many of the francophone Catholic missionary communities in Canada. Since 1988, Entraide Missionnaire has hosted an issue table on the Great Lakes Region. Its objective is to inform and sensitize the Canadian public and authorities to the complex realities of that country. The table focused more closely on the Congolese mining industry starting in 1997, during the first Congo war, when our Congolese partners asked us to inform them about the nature and objectives of the Canadian mining companies that were signing contracts with the parties to the conflict. Since then, together with our Congolese partners, we have been closely monitoring the changes in the mining industry in the Congo.

With regard to the Congo, I will merely remind you that the country was at war from 1996 to 2003, a war that nearly degenerated into a regional conflict when seven countries got involved in it. The wars resulted in millions of deaths, millions of refugees, millions of displaced persons and completely destroyed the country's political and administrative structures. Since the 2006 elections, the Congolese government has been trying to restore its authority and administrative services to the country as a whole, but has been unable to do so. It is in this context of violence and armed conflict, of major democratic deficit and widespread administrative disorganization that Canadian and other companies have come and established themselves in the Congo, at their own risk—a risk that they have not always been able, or wanted, to assess.

Here's the first case. In June 2000, when it became obvious that the illegal exploitation of natural resources was one of the primary reasons for the war, the UN Security Council established an expert panel to shed light on the links between the conflict and the exploitation of those resources. Until June 2003, the panel produced a series of reports identifying countries, companies and individuals joined together in “elite networks”, to use its expression, that were taking advantage of the climate of violence and insecurity to seize the Congo's wealth, and mining wealth first of all.

In addition to those “elite networks” directly involved in the conflict, the expert panel, in its second-last report of October 2008, identified nearly 100 foreign businesses, including seven Canadian mining companies, as being in direct violation of the OECD's guiding principles. In concrete terms, the expert panel accused those businesses of indirectly participating in the prolonging of the war and the resulting massive human rights violations, by continuing to do business with either a rebel group or the central government, and by paying mining concession acquisition fees, royalties or taxes, the proceeds of which were used to buy weapons.

In addition, based on supporting documentary evidence, it accused one of the Canadian companies of engaging in corruption involving persons close to the government in order to obtain certain concessions. In view of the outcry raised by this accusation made by an instrument of the United Nations, the Security Council extended the panel's mandate so that it could receive explanations from the companies concerned. In its final report, the expert panel classified the cases of 43 of those foreign businesses, including the seven Canadian companies, as “resolved”, while stating that that in no way invalidated the information previously obtained by the expert panel concerning the parties' activities.

In addition, the President of the Security Council called on all states concerned to conduct their own investigations into the expert panel's revelations. It also stated that all the “restricted but non-confidential” documents relating to the investigations would be available to states requesting them.

The Belgian senate held a parliamentary commission of inquiry and the National Contact Points of Great Britain, the United States and Belgium reviewed the cases of 13 of their companies cited in the report. Authorities so requesting obtained the documents claimed from the UN Office of Legal Affairs. In general, these initiatives revealed a significant degree of laxism on the part of the companies in their relationship with Congolese political and military authorities. In Belgium, the Senate commission's revelations led to judicial inquiries into corruption and money laundering. In three cases, the National Contact Points issued news releases to state that there was a problem. No action was taken in response to those news releases. As for the Belgian senate committee, most of the recommendations contained in its report were forgotten. The senate committee had no power of sanction.

Here in Canada, from 2002 to 2004, groups in Canadian and international civil society, as well as Congolese groups, asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the National Contact Point to obtain this documentation and pursue these inquiries in accordance with the Security Council president's recommendation. In 2005, our National Contact Point announced its decision to take no action in response to the expert panel's report.

For your information, for the 2008 fiscal year, the Canada Pension Plan held $297 million worth of shares in six of the companies cited in the expert panel's report. In 2004, the Canada Investment Fund for Africa granted $15 million to a company cited by the expert panel. Today, the figure is approximately $5 million.

Here's the second case, which is known to you, I believe. Anvil Mining and its Canadian staff are suspected of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. In 2008, the Canada Pension Plan held $20 million worth of shares in that company. In October 2004, six or seven rebels took control of the City of Kilwa, near the Anvil Mining mine. Company employees were requisitioned by Congolese authorities to transport military personnel by aircraft and truck to retake the city. The company also provided food rations to soldiers and paid their wages. The city was retaken in 48 hours, but its inhabitants had fled.

The UN observation mission to the Congo conducted an on-site investigation, which established that more than 100 persons had been killed during the military operation, including 28 by summary execution. According to witnesses, the soldiers had plundered the city, made arbitrary arrests, raped women and tortured prisoners. The report also indicates that Anvil Mining provided logistical support for the operation. Witnesses stated that the company had not only transported soldiers, prisoners and wounded, but had also conveyed the bodies of civilians who had been killed in order to bury them in a mass grave.

In the House of Commons in June 2005, Roger Clavet, member for Louis-Hébert, put a question on this subject to the Minister for International Cooperation. To date, that question has not been answered.

A military trial was conducted in the Congo in 2007. Three expatriate employees of Anvil Mining, including one Canadian, were summoned to testify. The court acquitted the company and its three employees on charges on aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Four Congolese citizens were sentenced to life in prison, but on charges unrelated to the massacre. Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was in the Congo at the time, said this: I am troubled by the court's findings that the events in Kilwa were the accidental result of combat, despite the fact that there was substantial eyewitness testimony at the trial and material evidence that serious human rights violations had been deliberately committed.

She pressed the court of appeal to weigh all the evidence and consider the rights of the 144 victims. Ms. Arbour's long-awaited appeal was unfortunately dismissed by the military court shortly thereafter. Starting in June 2005, Canadian, Congolese and international organizations demanded that the government conduct its own investigation into the incidents. Those demands were forwarded to the ministers concerned and to the National Contact Point. Similarly, following the court of appeal decision, most of those organizations asked the governments of South Africa, Australia and Canada to investigate the company and their nationals who had been involved in the incidents, as it had become clear that the victims could not be heard in the Congo.

In response, Canada's National Contact Point said that it had met with the company and had made it understand the Government of Canada's expectations: that it comply with the OECD's guiding principles, particularly its human rights recommendations. No investigation would be conducted.

Here are a few lessons I invite you to draw from these two cases.

In our view, both cases illustrate the benefits that would have resulted from the passage of Bill C-300 for the companies, the Government of Canada and the groups and individuals who felt they had been adversely affected by certain mining activities.

In both cases, the complaints were not frivolous or vexatious. Investigations were conducted and members of the authorities, such as the President of the UN Security Council and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated their opinion on the validity of the accusations. And yet no authority in Canada took action on those complaints. No one was accountable for those decisions.

No one took action in response to those requests to conduct an investigation and thus to confirm or contradict the charges, undermine the position of the companies or that of the Government of Canada.

On the ground in the Congo, as a result of the pervasive corruption and lack of transparency with respect to the conditions in which mining contracts are signed, the legitimacy of those contracts is still in doubt. In the current context of extreme poverty for the vast majority of the population, that could mean additional costs for the companies to increase security for their operations against the local communities that are not benefiting from the exploitation of their resources.

Somewhat as the previous witness said, Canada is losing its reputation.

Canada's diplomatic personnel have been and continue to be very active in supporting Canadian companies in the Congo, despite persistent doubts about the integrity of their contracts and behaviour. On a number of occasions, embassy staff and, on occasion, the ambassador, have publicly supported the companies despite their disputes with either the government or the local communities.

Even more important, Canada is purportedly blocking settlement of the Congo's debt to the Paris Club. That debt of approximately $4 billion or $5 billion was incurred as a result of Mobutu's pranks. That settlement is necessary for the country to have access to the International Monetary Fund's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, which the country very much needs. And that is because one of the Canadian companies cited in the expert panel's report is dissatisfied with the outcome of the renegotiation of one of its mining contracts. The Congolese government has decided to cancel one of those contracts.

Without the investigations called for in Canada and internationally, one wonders on what basis the Government of Canada decided to give such strong support to companies denounced in a UN report.

For many more years, the Congo will continue to be a democratically weak country and to have governance well below what constitutes a suitable business context. Political tensions can be expected to rise as the 2011 elections approach. Social tensions in the mining sector resulting in strikes, demonstrations and the eviction of manual diggers and local communities are already present and could last a long time.

In this context as well, the Export Development Canada has already announced that it intends to support the project of Tenke Fungurume Mining, one of whose partners, the Canadian company Lundin, was also cited by the expert panel.

In conclusion, in this specific unstable business climate, passage of Bill C-300 would hold out a definite benefit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Tougas.

We'll move into the first round.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to both witnesses.

I'll direct my questioning to Madam Picolotti.

You say in your testimony that you and your closest staff were personally and physically threatened following your mining intervention; your children were threatened, your offices wiretapped, your staff bought; your mission was jeopardized; and you were ultimately forced to resign when the President backed down under pressure. Yet you were also the winner of the Sophie prize in 2006, which I understand to be Norway's equivalent to the Nobel Prize, and they say, “Picolotti has given poor and disempowered people rights-based protection against exploitation and environmental destruction.” said chairman of the board, Gunhild Ørstavik. She shows how human rights operate not in isolation but intimately concerned with the environment.

My first question to you, Madam Picolotti, is this. You must have made some serious enemies in Argentina, having initially started quite an aggressive set of investigations and then, in effect, being forced to resign, while your work is being recognized internationally as quite outstanding work. I'd be interested in your comments.

[Romina Picolotti]

Yes, Mr. McKay.

When President Néstor Kirchner, the former President of Argentina, requested that I join government as the Secretary of the Environment, he decided to put the Secretary of the Environment at the ministerial rank. He gave four times more budget than we'd had before, and Argentina managed to receive the biggest loan ever from the World Bank, $800 million, for the performance of environmental policies in Argentina.

Yes, we built environmental policy, and Argentinian government began, for the first time in history, to put a lot of pressure on compliance on environmental law. We shut down Shell, for example. Shell has the biggest mine and refinery here in Argentina. We shut them down because they were not complying with the law. We worked closely with the Minister of the Environment from the Netherlands to make Shell comply with environmental law in Argentina. I must say that the cooperation between the two governments, even though Shell was putting a lot of pressures on gas prices in Argentina because we were shutting them down, was excellent. Finally, Shell signed an agreement with the government, with the Secretary of the Environment, and invested what we requested in environmental cleanup to comply with the environmental law. It was the same with Firestone and Danone.

Yes, we made enemies, but we also made friends along the way. At the beginning there was a lot of reluctance about our performance, but at the end the companies began to understand that we could also help them to comply with the law.

I'm sorry to say that--

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I take it that you were not universally successful, though, in particular with one company you keep referring to in your testimony: Barrick Gold. Would you say that Barrick is in compliance with Argentine law as it presently exists?

The other point I want to ask you about is the image of Canada. It was referenced by both Monsieur Tougas and you that the image of Canada is largely projected to people of Argentina and to Belgium, as the case may be, by the activities of companies such as Barrick. What would you say about the image of Canada in Argentina?

[Romina Picolotti]

I will start with your first question on the legal part.

I'm not a judge, I'm not part of the judiciary, so I cannot say whether Barrick complies with the law or not, but I can say that Barrick Gold has dozens of legal claims before the court right now. There are two claims against the company before the Supreme Court of Argentina, before the ombudsman of Argentina, before the provincial government ombudsman of San Juan, so there is a lot of doubt and legal claims being made about the compliance of the company with the law. And I can say that they're not complying with the environmental insurance that they should have for these kinds of operations.

Concerning the reputation of Canada, you know, the presence of these companies is pretty big in the communities and it represents Canada there. There are no embassies of Canada there, but Barrick Gold is in this area. Barrick Gold is from Canada, so it's inevitable that people relate this company to the country it comes from. If you talk to the people there, they say, “They would not do this in their country. Why do they do it here?” Inevitably, as I said before, the image and the reputation of Canada is really hurt by the behaviour of this company.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Briefly, I have the same question in English and French for Mr. Tougas and Madam Picolotti. Have you had discussions with the Government of Canada? During the time you were Secretary of State for Environment and Sustainable Development, Madam, did you make representations to the Government of Canada with respect to the activities of Barrick Gold?

The same question is also for Mr. Tougas. You have experience. You talked about the embassy's position, but I would like to know to what extent the Canadian government was aware of the humanitarian challenges and to what extent it responded to those representations.

Madam, could you respond to that question? Did you contact the Canadian government? Were you in touch?

[Romina Picolotti]

I was not in touch directly with the Canadian government. I was in touch with the Chilean government, because it was a binational project and it was our counterpart during these operations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Tougas, do you want to respond to that very quickly? We are over our seven minutes.

[Denis Tougas]

There had been regular contact with all ambassadors posted to the Congo since 1997, all trade delegates, the people from the National Contact Point, the people from Foreign Affairs. I attended at least four meetings with representatives of the various departments and representatives of some of those companies.

Yes, the government was very much aware of our concerns about the situation on the ground. The response to that was always the same: no follow-up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Tougas.

Would you have a copy of the letters that you sent to the ambassadors at all? Would you be able to forward us a copy of those letters?

All right, thank you.

We'll move to Madam Lalonde, pour sept minutes.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'll take half a minute to say that what is going on shows that we should have taken much more time.

I'm going to start with Mr. Tougas. You described a situation that many Quebeckers and Canadians would not be able to believe is true if the witness who reported it was not extremely credible. This takes us back to a colonial situation that was denounced in every way when it applied to the development of the new countries of North America.

Explain to us how this bill would be advantageous. You finished your frightening presentation by saying that Bill C-300 would be an improvement.

[Denis Tougas]

Thank you.

I said that Canada's reputation was jeopardized. Yesterday, Canada was called neocolonial in a Kinshasa newspaper. I'll read you the headline: “Consequence of the mining contract reviews, Kinshasa taken hostage: Paris Club wants to impose unconscionable contracts.”

Then more than one article focused on the situation, and this appeared: How can Canada and the United States in the Club of Rome bring this kind of pressure, take the Congo hostage, because they are dissatisfied with the internal settlement between the government and the company?

I'm talking about the future, not the past. Bill C-300 would benefit the companies. Both the government and the communities on the ground would have outside recourse. You know it as well as I do that the governance of the Congo is not up to par; corruption is everywhere. This would make it possible to solidify Canada's efforts to support these businesses. I cited two cases, but there are a number.

Canada has taken a public position, and people have said that Canada was aiding and abetting something. If there was an organization such as that provided for by Bill C-300, a parliamentary organization or a Canadian organization could say whether the allegations are true or false. Canada would then have all the legitimacy to support these businesses more than it does now.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I would like to put the same question to Ms.—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

May I interject here?

Madam Picolotti, can you hear us clearly? Do you have French translation there--or do you speak French?

[Romina Picolotti]

Yes, I speak French. The translation is not very good, so I couldn't understand one of the questions.

Can you repeat your question, please? If you can do so in French, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam Lalonde.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam, you made an extremely troubling presentation, and I told the previous speaker that, if he hadn't been an extremely credible witness, what he said would be absolutely incredible for most, if not all Quebeckers, and Canadians as well.

You said that you and your family had been physically threatened. When you had every reason to believe that the president would support your actions, he invoked his veto. We are dealing with what I call a “colonial” situation. You nevertheless said that this bill could be useful. Could you explain to us how it could be?