Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is quite striking that we have a case of Canadian children detained abroad whose captors wish to release them, but the Government of Canada is not putting in place the conditions to facilitate that release. Mr. Champ made the observation that this is as if all that was required for the two Michaels to be released was for us to go and pick them up and we failed to do that.
Mr. Champ, I think that in some ways it's worse than that. It's as if, having received the offer, we had gone and picked up one of the Michaels and left the other behind, because Canada did launch an operation to bring one person out of northern Syria and then inexplicably said they couldn't do any more.
I would like to ask specifically for your reactions, Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Champ, to the testimony of the previous foreign affairs minister. I raised these issues with Minister Champagne on November 24 before this committee. I asked him why it was possible to repatriate one Canadian child but not the rest. He said that essentially “there was only one Canadian orphan who was in [the] camp”. He said, “That's why we could mount a very extraordinary mission to repatriate her.”
He said: “We had one orphan, and we brought her back. We should all be happy with that.” That's a direct quote: “We should all be happy with that.” I wonder if you had an opportunity to hear the minister's testimony on the 24th and if you want to react to that part or any other part of the minister's testimony on that day.
Maybe we can hear Mr. Mohammed first and then Mr. Champ.