Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mr. Horne. We're pleased to have you here. Anybody going to that part of the world, with the kind of government.... It's hard to even use the word “government” in relation to a system like they have.
Mr. Davis was before us and he said that there was no use of slave labour as such. Listening to your testimony, it sounds to me like they were very naive when they went in there. I'm very reluctant to point fingers at any Canadian company and say they would deliberately engage slave labour or support it in any form. I would like to think they wouldn't, but on the other hand it sounds like they were really naive.
Another statement we had is that their CSR page indicates the company “has embarked on a number of programs with the community and the local, regional, and central government” to ensure the benefits of their project are actually widespread and that the community is fully and properly engaged with the development and operations.
That's a very nice statement, and I hope it's true. What's your reaction to that statement?