Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will finish by simply saying that it was always my hope—and I thought it was the committee's vision as well—that we would do this work in the summer as phase one, which the government did act on and which was to bring the 1,200 Yazidis over by the end of the year, but we always knew that work was not complete. We always knew. At least in my heart, I knew that work was not complete and that we needed to continue. The witnesses who came before us in the summer said that as well. That's exactly what the witnesses in this round said to us in terms of the work that needs to continue. I really don't understand why there is harm for this committee in doing our work independently.
Mr. Chair, you are a new chair of this committee and you have said to me—and I don't think you mind me saying this publicly—that this committee works independently of government and independently of the minister, and that we have our own minds and our own capacity to do our work. The chair before you, Mr. Oliphant, reiterated the same thing. He said to us that the work we do here could be some of the most important work that we will do as members of Parliament. We have the chance to make a difference in putting forward this report.
We're talking about saving lives: the lives of people, of women, of victims who have been raped. There are victims who are being killed, and there are those who are coming out to plead for help. There is a genocide against this community. We owe them that much, to say that this work will continue. We owe them that much to do our work as committee members to put a full report to the minister and to have the minister respond to us accordingly. That is accountability. That's transparency. If we do that, we should all be very proud of what we're doing here, even when we disagree, Mr. Chair.
I hope the members will retract the amendment. Let's get on with it. Let's get on with it and do something that's really cool, you know. I think we can do it.