Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Suffice it to say that as issues continue, we continue to raise concerns. As recently as their most recent report, the Correctional Investigator in this country also raised concerns about the issues of human rights violations and discriminatory treatment of prisoners. All such groups, including Mr. Tremblay's group, have raised concerns regarding the need to ratify the optional protocol by Canada.
We see it as one example of the manner in which the government has demonstrated reluctance to enable the sorts of oversight mechanisms that are necessary to address the discriminatory and harmful policies and practices of the nature that we have outlined in our brief to the United Nations in 2005.
On December 10, 2005, in fact, Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, and our organization encouraged this government to adopt the optional protocol. In addition, at that time it was International Human Rights Day, as you are undoubtedly aware. It was also the 57th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.