Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon members of the subcommittee. It's an honour and a pleasure to be back in front of you, especially with the four tremendous colleagues you are about to hear from.
I'm not going to take up time other than to very briefly situate why we have brought these four individuals in front of you. There are three main reasons, and they will be very obvious as you hear from our four guests.
The first is that there are very serious human rights concerns still—you've heard them before—in both Guatemala and Honduras. These four individuals have much to tell you. The second is that in both of those countries those concerns often arise in a context related to the operations of extractive companies. In both Guatemala and Honduras, that implicates Canada very often, so there's a range of related issues that are important to underscore. Third, there are particular groups that face heightened risk, and among the individuals you're going to hear from today, you're going to realize that human rights defenders—you've already used the term, Mr. Levitt—indigenous peoples, and journalists feature prominently among those at risk. Those are the three things we're hoping to highlight.
It's a very opportune moment. It's opportune because these are two countries where Canada's influence matters. It's opportune because, as members of this subcommittee will know, Canada recently demonstrated its strong commitment to human rights defenders by adopting guidelines for Canadian action, diplomacy, and assistance regarding human rights defenders, so that gives us a great opening.
The UN working group on business and human rights has just been to Canada, and I think those issues are in the frame as well. We know that this is a time of new beginnings around a lot of Canadian international policy matters. We had a speech earlier this week around a new foreign policy agenda, and we're anticipating the release of the “International Assistance Review” tomorrow. We know that corporate accountability and progressive trade matters are under review, so there are many reasons why what you're going to hear from these four individuals is timely and important.
With that, I would like to turn it over to the first witness.