Thank you for the opportunity to expand, because I had a lot more to say than I could in the six minutes.
At the time, the situation was quite different. I think the Chinese government had not embarked on its campaign of assimilation, of destruction of the Uighur culture. In fact, there was support from the Chinese government to help Uighur women get into business to develop small trade.
Apart from CIDA's official programs, I should add that at the embassy we have the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, which can be used to support small projects. When I was ambassador, we would use these projects and sometimes give a grant of $20,000 or $50,000 to help people organize a co-operative or to fight discrimination based on gender. We got quite good results. We had a few projects in Xinjiang.
I must say that once the Chinese government changed the law on NGOs in China, preventing them from getting foreign funding, it became almost impossible to fund any of these projects. The Chinese government was very concerned that some of these projects would lead to social instability.