With all due respect to those witnesses—particularly Mr. Kara-Murza—who spoke about their personal experiences, people who did not testify at this committee have had a different experience, and they have not had a public profile.
I want to make sure that those who've had experiences of success—as we and the world had in that case—because of public attention.... There have been many cases that we don't hear about because they are still personal and private. We are trying to say one size does not fit all cases.
We had testimony from the Human Rights Action Group in their written brief—which was our number nine brief—from Mr. Robert Brookfield with Global Affairs Canada, as well as from Angelica Liao-Moroz on May 7. There were three different opinions that were contrary to those.
What I think the government is asking for is the flexibility to use nuance and discretion to decide when it is best to go public, and to encourage family members and NGOs to go public, and when not to go public.
In my own personal experience, three years ago, I had a very difficult case. I was working on the case of a non-Canadian citizen who was a permanent resident of Canada incarcerated in another country. There were NGOs that wanted to go public. I had to work with them very carefully to ensure the safety of that particular political prisoner, as well as many others, and we were able to bring him home. That's a case in which he was in such a situation that he would not testify at a committee like this because it would be too difficult for him.
We're trying to balance things. We believe that public declarations are, at times, extremely important and should be used. However, requiring these can put people's lives in danger. We have witness testimony that would back that up and would hold to our amendment.