As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Chair, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been front and centre in discussions on human rights in the inter-american system over the past couple of weeks, and leading in to the OAS general assembly on Monday it will continue to be so.
Canada has continued to support the promotion of human rights and the human rights system in the Americas and will continue to do so. I'm aware of that, and I met with the head of the commission about a week and a half ago. He appeared here, and he did issue a press release at one point talking about the dire circumstances of the commission.
The funding for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights comes from the regular budget of the OAS. Canada is the third largest contributor to the regular budget of the OAS, to the tune of almost $11 million. The commission is funded through that regular budget. Canada will push for that to continue to happen, first. Second, in terms of voluntary contributions since 2008, Canada has contributed $4.8 million to the commission for specific projects. When I met the head of the commission not to long ago, I informed him that if the commission had other projects to be considered by Canada with funding through our voluntary contributions, we'd be pleased to look at those.