Sure, absolutely.
It was tremendously important for our government that Canadian values, values based on equality, human dignity, human rights and understanding of the vulnerabilities that different populations, including women and girls, face when they are in migration or refugee situations, were all included in the final draft of the compact. That was to ensure that we had the best understanding of what Canada wanted to offer to these compacts from the moment that the declaration in New York was signed in 2016. We undertook extensive consultations. We consulted with a range of migration experts across the country, with academics, with NGOs.
We also consulted extensively with the provinces and territories. Each provincial government was asked to provide feedback on their thoughts of what was contained within the compact. A number of those provinces provided feedback. Some of them didn't. Those that did provide feedback expressed no concerns with our signing of the compact and we took silence by the others to mean that they were comfortable with Canada signing on to the compact.
We're comfortable that through those consultations we were able to reflect Canadian values broadly and comprehensively, and ensure that the compact doesn't set a global standard for itself that Canada needs to find for itself, but that it demonstrates the standard that Canada has set for the world and will allow us to work with other countries to bring them up to the standard we've set.