Chair, I just wanted to say to the committee that this is something we worked on over the course of two Parliaments. In the last Parliament, a remedy was proposed by the government. Unfortunately, as you can see from that fifth “whereas” clause, it only allowed for the resettlement of 23 individuals. And at the time we discussed this in the last Parliament, around 2,000 people were still in the Philippines. Thanks to the efforts of other countries, that number is down around 140 of the original Vietnamese boat people who didn't have a remedy from the Philippines under the United Nations resettlement plan. And some of those folks have dependants as well. So the actual number of people who may need resettlement is probably slightly higher than 140, but it's around 140 of the original Vietnamese folks.
On September 28th, 2006. See this statement in context.