Mr. Chair, I have a clarification, and then two short questions for Ms. Dench.
In the speech by Ms. Rempel, she referred to a television interview. That was with yours truly. She indicated that I failed to respond to why the government had been making a massive effort to settle Syrians as a priority.
This is what I said at that time on the CBC and what I'll say again now: it's because the largest international humanitarian crisis since World War II involves Syrian nationals. We've heard that of about 60 million people in movement in the world, 12 million of them are Syrian. I said that then. I guess Ms. Rempel just couldn't recollect that. It's quite apparent to our government, and quite apparent to the Canadian public, the magnitude of the crisis. Apparently it's not apparent to her.
Ms. Dench, thank you for your testimony. You used the words “dishonourable recent history” in referring to Canada when you said it had attempted to specify or favour particular ethnicities among the UNHCR referrals. Could you clarify that? Were you speaking about the areas of focus program of the previous government?