I said that I take particular interest in human rights matters because I am a human rights and constitutional lawyer, a member who represents a riding that has 7,000 Tibetan Canadians, and the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet group.
Given that preamble, I want to ask you three categories of questions, all of which arise from a public response from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to a petition that was tabled by Mr. Garrison in the House of Commons.
The first relates to Tashi Wangchuk, the case that was outlined by Mr. Genuis. He was charged with inciting separatism, under your Chinese criminal code, for advocating for the cultural rights of Tibetans to study in the Tibetan language. Promoting cultural language and language identity is a significant priority for our government. We are doing this with indigenous languages here in Canada. Specifically, I want to ask you why the Government of Canada was denied permission to attend Tashi Wangchuk's trial, which took place on January 4. What was the decision of the court? Why is advocating for language rights viewed as a separatist activity? That's the first set of questions.
The second set of questions relates to the Panchen Lama, again raised by Mr. Genuis. You confirmed that he is alive and that his parents are alive, in your previous response. I want to know if you'd be willing to arrange for a Canadian or an international delegation to visit Gendhun Choekyi Nyima in the coming months.
A third point relates to His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Sino-Tibetan dialogue. That is a dialogue that took place over nine meetings between the People's Republic and envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. There were nine meetings between 2002 and 2010. We want to ask why, in your opinion, that Sino-Tibetan dialogue about the middle-way approach has been stalled since 2010. What conditions would be necessary for China to return to the dialogue table? I think that returning to the dialogue to discuss the middle-way approach is an important issue for Tibetan Canadians in this country.
Thank you. Thuk je che.