Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I signalled at the beginning, I want to use the first minute of my time to provide a notice of motion regarding an urgent and deeply concerning situation related to Iran. This notice of motion is as follows:
That given recent reports of threats to lives of individuals in Canada from the Iranian regime, the ongoing freedom movement in Iran and the killing of dozens of Canadians by the regime including the shooting down of flight PS 752, and pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of the threat to Canadians from the Iranian regime and how the Government of Canada should respond; that the committee invite the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety, the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to testify as part of this study; and, that the committee seeks to hear from these officials prior to Friday, December 16, 2022.
That is the notice of motion, Mr. Chair.
I think, given what all members would understand to be the urgency and sensitivity of the situation, and that the calendar seems to be more fluid than we thought it was anyway, this motion would be worth discussing as soon as possible. We would propose that it be considered for discussion on Wednesday.
I'll now turn back to the witnesses. Thank you so much for being here.
I want to start by asking our friends from the NCCM whether there are different models proposed for what some would call a regionalized approach to responding to forced and child labour—recognizing that there are specific situations, especially in the case of East Turkestan, where forced labour is not something that happens in the shadows. It's actually being organized and coordinated centrally by the state as part of a genocide, which is very different from some of the other kinds of forced labour we see in other parts of the world.
You mentioned the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States and other cases of targeted legislative instruments. I very much agree with you that Parliament needs to act on this. We have Bill S-204 from Senator Housakos, which would ban goods coming from East Turkestan. We could do what the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act does and provide a reverse onus, where no goods come in unless there's proof that no forced or child labour was involved.
Could you speak to why you think it's important to have a regionalized approach as part of our response to forced and child labour? Why is it not good enough having the same piece of legislation apply to the whole world? Why do we need to specifically, either in legislation or regulation, name regions and respond to the particularities of those situations?