What happened after that motion was passed is interesting. The Canadian embassy in Beijing, and Canadian officials in Beijing, worked to follow through on the terms of that motion. They worked to help get the individuals who were named in that motion out of prison, and then they worked to get them to Canada.
Unfortunately, in the case of Mingli Lin, the consulate in Shanghai—the Canadian consulate—did not issue a visa. This was raised in the House of Commons. We pointed out that the House had unanimously passed a motion asking that he be allowed to come to Canada. Nonetheless, the visa was denied. He was subsequently rearrested and spent additional years imprisoned for practising his beliefs. More recently, he was again released from prison, and he has since come to Canada, where we are very glad to have him.
I'm going to turn the floor over to our witnesses now. What I'm hoping they can talk about is the process they experienced after the House of Commons acted 10 years ago. We want to find out what Canadian officials did right and what they did wrong. We do not want to have a situation in the future where another person who has been asked in a motion of Parliament to come to Canada finds himself re-imprisoned in his country as a result of a lack of follow-though by Canadian officials.
I want to say welcome to both Shenli Lin and Mingli Lin. I invite Shenli Lin to begin testifying. Once he has done so, we will have questions from members of the committee.
Thank you.