I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number four of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
Pursuant to the order of reference of October 27, the subcommittee is meeting for the continuation of the briefing on the current situation in Nigeria, as well as a briefing on the current situation in Zimbabwe.
We will then move in camera at the end of the meeting to discuss the work plan for our COVID study.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format and is also one of the first meetings as part of the House of Commons pilot project on webinar formats. This pilot project is for public committee meetings and is available only to members and their staff.
Members might have remarked that the entry to the meeting was much quicker and that they immediately entered as an active participant. All functionalities for active participants remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants only and can therefore only view the meeting in gallery view.
I also thank the witnesses for helping us with this pilot project. I trust that the experience will be a good one.
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind all participants to this meeting that taking screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted, and I will also highlight the fact that this was mentioned by Speaker Rota on September 29, 2020.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I'll outline a few rules to follow. I'm going to start with one that's not so much a rule, but when there's a minute left to your time, I'll hold a card up, and then maybe one when you have 30 seconds left, to help the members with their time allocation.
I thank Iqra for that. That's something she uses at her committees, and I guess it works very well.
Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as in regular committee meetings. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you're ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike.
As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.
We will now begin with the current situation in Nigeria.
I welcome our witness, or possibly witnesses.
From the Nigerian Canadian Association here in Ottawa, we have the president, Mr. Imahiagbe.
Welcome. The floor is yours.