International Trade Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call the meeting to order.

This is meeting 47 of the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022, and therefore members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application.

I need to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

With regard to interpretation, those on Zoom have the choice at the bottom of the screen of either floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Please also note that during the meeting you are not permitted to take pictures in the room or take screen shots on Zoom.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning technical tests for witnesses, I am informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required tests.

Should any technical challenges arise, please let me know, and we will then suspend to ensure that everybody has full translation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, February 20, 2022, the committee is beginning a study of environmental and human rights considerations regarding Canadian mining firms abroad.

I welcome all of our witnesses and colleagues who are here today.

With MiningWatch Canada by video conference, we have Catherine Coumans, research coordinator. From Oxfam Canada, we have Ian Thomson, manager of policy. From Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada by video conference, we have Lisa McDonald, executive director, and Jeff Killeen, director of policy and programs.

I'm told that the witnesses from the Prospectors and Developers Association are with us for just an hour, so we will try to ensure that committee members get their questions asked before they have to depart.

We welcome you all. We'll start with opening remarks.

Dr. Coumans, I invite you to make an opening statement of up to five minutes, please.

[Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator , MiningWatch Canada]

Thank you.

Since 1999, MiningWatch Canada has been working with mining-affected communities and indigenous peoples struggling to protect their human rights and their environment from egregious impacts and abuses by Canadian mining companies operating in Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.

For over 20 years, we have been dealing with the brutal realities of violent evictions of indigenous peoples from their homes by mine personnel, shootings of local men and boys, and brutal rapes of women and girls by mine security, as well as the use of forced labour in places such as Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Guatemala and Eritrea.

We work with communities facing health crises and the loss of food security because of rivers and groundwater contaminated by mine waste, as well as the pollution of soil and air from mineral processing at mine sites. We grieve with communities over the loss of indigenous sacred sites and over the loss of life due to catastrophic tailings dam failures in places such as the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina and the Philippines.

These environmental and human rights abuses have not diminished in the 23 years that I have been working at MiningWatch Canada. Year after year, the mining industry is expanding its global footprint—often in countries with weak governance—in search of new lucrative ore bodies, expanding into ever more remote and often indigenous territories and into critical ecosystems such as the Amazon, the paramos and glaciers. Year after year, we are confronted with new communities desperately seeking protection from the harm they've endured because of the operations of a Canadian exploration company or junior or senior mining company in places such as Kyrgyzstan, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and small islands in Indonesia and the Pacific.

The common denominator that ties together these human rights and environmental abuses by Canadian mining companies operating overseas is a lack of accountability. We are not talking about a few bad apples here; we're talking about a systemic reality in which Canadian mining companies, large and small, are operating with effective impunity—impunity that enables and drives further abuses.

Since 1997, nine cases have been filed in Canadian courts against Cambior, Copper Mesa, Anvil, Hudbay, Tahoe and Nevsun for allegations arising from their overseas operations. These cases concern assaults, shootings, gang rapes of local indigenous peoples by mine security, the use of slave labour and the contamination of a river by mine waste.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of egregious harm inflicted, as it remains extremely difficult to overcome formidable legal hurdles such as forum non conveniens and the corporate veil to bring cases in Canada. The most recent case filed in Canada was just in November 2022, and is it against Barrick Gold, a member of the Mining Association of Canada. This is the third case filed against Barrick and its subsidiaries since 2015 on behalf of victims of violence by mine security and police guarding Barrick's North Mara gold mine in Tanzania. We're talking about the rape, killing and maiming of local Kuria people by mine security. These have been repeatedly reported since at least 2009.

Additionally, villagers are currently being forcibly evicted to make way for mine expansion. Under armed police guard, distraught parents and children look on in horror as their homes are bulldozed while their clothes are still drying on the line. There is no resettlement plan for these already vulnerable indigenous people, who now face homelessness and food insecurity.

Since 2007, five U.N. treaty bodies have focused specifically on harm caused by Canadian mining companies operating overseas and have reminded Canada of its duty to protect human rights at home and abroad. In 2016, the international Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights asked Canada to “develop a legal framework that affords legal remedies to people who have been victims of activities of such corporations operating abroad.” Canada must finally take comprehensive and effective action.

We know what must be done: Canada must implement mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, as detailed in private member's Bill C-262, tabled in March 2022. Canada must give the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise investigatory powers to compel witness testimony and documents, as committed to by the government in 2018 and as proposed by a majority of members of the foreign affairs committee in their report of June 2021.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll go on to Mr. Thomson, please, for up to five minutes.

[Ian Thomson, Manager of Policy, Oxfam Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, all members of the committee, for inviting Oxfam here today.

My name is Ian Thomson. I am the manager of policy at Oxfam Canada.

Oxfam Canada and Oxfam-Québec are part of a global confederation that is active in 87 countries around the world and is working to fight poverty and inequality. We put gender justice and women’s rights at the heart of everything we do.

Together with civil society partners and people’s movements around the world, Oxfam is working for greater accountability in the mining, oil and gas sectors because we’ve seen first-hand how these industries can exacerbate inequality if left unregulated.

Oxfam has documented an entrenched gender bias in the mining, oil and gas industries whereby women, girls and gender-diverse people are less likely to derive benefits such as well-paid jobs, contracting opportunities and compensation for land use. They are also at greater risk of being harmed by gender-based violence, housing shortages and other things that particularly affect women living in poverty.

It’s not only Oxfam that is observing this troubling pattern. Last year the Responsible Mining Foundation published a report that revealed that the mining industry had made little to no progress on gender equality. It reviewed the practices of dozens of major mining companies against 16 different metrics and assessed over 250 mine sites around the world. Sadly, no Canadian mining company made it into the list of the top 10 of those taking action on gender equality.

Canadian parliamentarians have spent the past two decades holding periodic studies on the harmful impacts of Canadian mining firms operating abroad, yet Parliament has failed to enact any meaningful legislation to address the problem.

Since the time that Mr. Jean Chrétien was prime minister, human rights defenders from the Philippines, Congo, Guatemala, Mexico and countless other countries have met with parliamentarians to tell them first-hand about the human rights violations associated with Canadian corporate activity abroad, be it targeted killings, forced displacements, gang rape, forced labour or other egregious violations of human dignity. However, the federal government, regardless of the party in power, has shown a complete lack of political will to set clear, enforceable norms for the industry when operating abroad.

What's going to be different this time? How will the members of this committee distinguish this study from others that came before it?

We believe there is a new urgency to take action here in Canada to address these governance gaps. If we're not doing business to the highest ethical standards, we will alienate our trading partners and fail to gain the support of local communities to host the mines of tomorrow.

Our Deputy Prime Minister has spoken about deepening trading relationships with Canada’s friends, but we won’t strengthen our friendships if our companies operate abroad with little regard for human rights and the environment. On the contrary, it’s bad business and bad diplomacy to rely solely on voluntary measures when it comes to responsible business conduct.

Oxfam would like to present three policy recommendations that we believe this committee should endorse to increase accountability and responsible conduct in the mining sector.

The first recommendation is to adopt new legislation in Canada that would mandate Canadian companies to conduct comprehensive due diligence around human rights and the environment in their operations and their global supply chains. Oxfam recently submitted a brief to the foreign affairs and international development committee outlining our priorities for such legislation.

In short, Canada should ensure that its legislation covers all human rights and all sectors of our economy, and provides redress for people who believe their rights have been violated by Canadian companies.

Fortunately, the Prime Minister has already asked Labour Minister O’Regan to table such legislation in the current session of Parliament. To date, the minister has not outlined how he will be advancing this part of his mandate, and would likely welcome advice from this committee.

Oxfam’s second recommendation is to strengthen the office of the Canadian ombudsperson on responsible enterprise, which was announced by this government five years ago but has yet to fully investigate any Canadian mining companies.

Why is that? People who believe they’ve been harmed by Canadian mining companies are not bringing complaints to the CORE because the government has given the office a very weak mandate and hindered it from conducting thorough and independent investigations. A strengthened ombudsperson could go a long way toward improving respect for human rights in the mining sector.

Our third recommendation is for Canada to adopt an explicit feminist foreign policy without delay. A feminist foreign policy would help to ensure that the international trade dimensions of our foreign policy live up to Canada's feminist aspirations. Trade agreements would then introduce binding clauses on realizing gender equality and human rights, not just voluntary clauses on corporate social responsibility. We believe that by taking such actions, Canada will raise the bar on its mining industry and ensure that people who are most at risk from mining operations will no longer be harmed and will benefit from resource development.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Thomson.

We now have Ms. McDonald for up to five minutes, please.

[Lisa McDonald, Executive Director, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Chair and committee members. Thank you for inviting PDAC to appear today on behalf of Canada's mineral exploration industry.

I first want to acknowledge that I come to you from Toronto, on the traditional lands of the Huron, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, Wendat and Oneida peoples, the Anishnabeg, the Mississaugas of the Credit and all of the indigenous nations who have lived on these lands over the centuries.

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, PDAC, is the leading voice of the mineral exploration and development industry, with over 6,000 members in Canada and around the world, including nearly 1,000 corporate members. Notably, Canada's mineral industry consists of more than 1,100 public companies representing one-third of all listings on Canadian exchanges.

We understand that the Canadian mineral industry is a key component of our economy and that the demand for critical minerals will increase substantially as jurisdictions around the globe attempt to lower carbon emissions and expand renewable energy sources. There is simply no energy transition without minerals, and PDAC focuses our work on supporting a competitive, responsible and sustainable mineral industry that can help drive this change.

With these hallmarks in mind, the objectives and strategic goals of our association align with the recently released Canada's critical minerals strategy. We recognize how establishing new critical mineral supply chains will be a catalyst for economic growth and will create well-paying employment opportunities across our country and in many regions around the world. We also understand that mineral explorers and developers working at home and abroad must continue to evolve best practices to attract the people, access the land and generate the capital needed for Canada's critical minerals strategy and a sustainable future to become reality.

From governments, there must be clearly defined development pathways for viable critical mineral deposits in Canada in order to meet our emission, conservation and biodiversity-related objectives.

From industry, we must continue to ingrain environmental, social and governance standards into the mineral exploration and development process that place human rights as a central pillar. Such actions can lay groundwork for collaborating with other nations and allow Canadian companies to export responsible mineral exploration and development activities around the world.

Part of our work at PDAC is to develop tools that support industry. The year 2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of what we originally named “e3”, which is now e3 Plus, a framework for responsible exploration. This guidance suite provides mineral exploration companies with the tools needed to improve their social, environmental and health and safety performances. This framework includes specific content on human rights and environmental stewardship and outlines how to conduct risk assessments to identify potential direct and indirect impacts on human rights in advance of exploration. Our e3Plus also outlines how companies should review and update risk assessments regularly as they move through different stages of the exploration process.

PDAC has actively engaged and supported the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise, CORE, in developing their mandate. We also remain committed to working with Global Affairs Canada, NRCan, the CORE, the trade commissioner service and others to ensure that Canada's mining and exploration sector can continue to be a global leader in sustainable and responsible practices.

We are widely recognized for the PDAC annual convention that brings mineral explorers, developers and miners from more than 100 countries together in one place to connect. Convention programming provides a venue to share perspectives, offer professional education and create a collaborative environment to share best practices.

Our suite of programs for 2023 includes "Changing global rules? The impact of EU's raw materials strategy", which will see European representatives discuss the impact of governmental strategies on Canadian mineral exploration companies operating in and outside the EU. We are also offering "Navigating complex waters: Tools for security, conflict, and human rights", which is a session tailored specifically towards providing guidance to mineral exploration and mining companies on respecting human rights in operational security.

We have sent invitations to all Canadian parliamentarians to attend PDAC 2023. We certainly encourage members of this committee to attend our convention and in particular to take part in our dedicated sustainability program. This program will host the sessions I just mentioned, plus other topics ranging from ESG disclosure, co-operative agreement development and creating harassment-free work environments that are safe for all.

We will be sure to send this invitation directly to the committee's clerk to ensure that it is at your disposal.

Our association does not ignore the fact that the mineral exploration and mining industry has made missteps in the past. However, in the vast majority of cases, Canadian companies operate to the highest standards, both within and outside of Canada. PDAC and our e3 Plus framework, along with other cohort associations like the Mining Association of Canada—which was not able to be here with us today—and its Towards Sustainable Mining initiative are built expressly to help accelerate the adoption of best practices in regions that may have less regulatory oversight and to export Canadian values abroad.

Thank you for your time. I and my colleague, Jeff Killeen, will welcome any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. McDonald.

We'll go on to our members.

Mr. Baldinelli, you have six minutes, please.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.

I'm going to begin with a little preamble.

In January of 2018, the federal government announced the creation of the office of the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise, also known as CORE, and the creation of a multi-stakeholder advisory board called the advisory body on responsible business conduct to advise the government on matters of responsible business conduct abroad.

Through the briefing materials that we received from our analysts—and they were excellent, so thank you—I understand that two of the three witnesses present today had a role on this advisory board. The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada was named as a member in the government background document from 2018. MiningWatch Canada was referenced in a news release published on Amnesty International Canada's website on July 11, 2019.

With just a simple yes or no, can both organizations please confirm that they were members of this advisory board between the dates of January 17, 2018, and July 19, 2019?

[Lisa McDonald]

Yes, I can confirm that on behalf of PDAC.

[Catherine Coumans]

MiningWatch Canada was a member of the MSAB in a back-up position.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you.

The Amnesty news release identified MiningWatch Canada as one of 14 civil society and labour unions to unanimously resign from this advisory board on July 11, 2019. According to the release, the reason for this mass resignation was the erosion of trust and confidence in the Liberal government's commitment to international corporate accountability.

It goes on to say that “the CORE remains without meaningful power to serve impacted communities and workers. Civil society believes the government will not provide the promised investigatory powers before the upcoming federal elections.”

I'm going to begin with Ms. Coumans.

What frustrations did MiningWatch Canada and other civil society and labour groups have towards the Liberal government and its position at this time?

[Catherine Coumans]

Thank you for that question.

Yes, that's going back a ways. I think it's a very important question, because in 2018, the Government of Canada made a commitment, in the creation of the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise, that this officer would have the investigatory powers to compel documents and witnesses, yet a year later, when Sheri Meyerhoffer was installed as the first ombudsperson, she was not given those powers.

It was on the Government of Canada's website that she would have these powers. She in fact took the position assuming that she would have those powers. She was not given those powers. This is critically important.

There was an erosion of the commitment that had been made compared to what actually ended up happening when she was installed because there was a huge lobbying effort against those powers. This was right in the public realm. The Mining Association of Canada made public statements in the media saying that they opposed the ombudsperson having those powers.

The reason it's so critically important for her to have those powers is that without them, you have a he-said, she-said situation. The community says that their animals are dying when they drink from this river, that they can't bathe in the river, that they get sores. The company says that they've done testing and it's fine, but they don't have to provide those documents.

There's no—

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you for your comments.

I'm going to follow up with another question for you, just to build on that.

Would you say MiningWatch Canada felt deceived by the government in terms of the establishment of this advisory body?

Would it be fair to say that this body was set up more for political reasons, at a time coming into a federal election, rather than to implement needed change?

[Catherine Coumans]

I don't know if it was put in for political reasons, but what I do know is that when we participated in that body, it became very clear very quickly that the issues that really needed to be dealt with—the fact that the CORE needed to have the powers that she needed, the fact that we needed to start talking about legislation, mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence—were not going to be addressed in that committee.

There were lots of problems with the way it was set up, with the types of issues that were being proposed, and it was held in check very strictly by the secretariat. We had very little input on what was actually going to be discussed. When it became very clear that the ombudsperson was not going to be granted the powers that she needed to be effective, there was a resignation of all the civil society and union members.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Following up on that, in the Amnesty International news release from July 11, 2019, Emily Dwyer, from the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, was quoted as saying, “ 'Without independence and investigatory powers, the CORE amounts to nothing more than a broken promise.' ”

Do you agree it was a broken promise by this Liberal government?

[Catherine Coumans]

It was definitely a broken promise. It was more than a promise; it was a commitment. This was actually publicly stated by the Government of Canada. At that time the minister was François-Philippe Champagne, and the commitment was made very publicly.

In fact, when the commitment was broken, there was a further process. There was actually someone hired to look at the judicial aspects of providing the CORE with those powers. There was a report that came out of that, and that report was withheld. That report was leaked during hearings in 2021. In that report, it was clear that those powers could be granted and that the CORE would be more effective with those powers. This was in a foreign affairs committee hearing in 2021.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We move on to Mr. Arya, please, for six minutes.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question will be for Ms. Lisa McDonald of the Prospectors and Developers Association.

First of all, I would like to place on record my appreciation for the contributions of the mining sector to our country's prosperity and the standard of living that we currently enjoy. Some of us with comfortable paycheques who live in urban centres in our comfortable homes don't really appreciate the hard work done by the men and women working in the mining sector in a tough physical environment.

The mining companies and the several generations of Canadians who have worked for those companies have contributed greatly to our current status in the world. According to the numbers I have, in 2020, I think the mining sector contributed about $107 billion to GDP and had about $103 billion in export.

I also understand the high amount of capital that is risked in prospecting and in developing a mine and the long-term nature of developing a single mine, especially when almost 730 of Canada's 1,350 mining companies have operations abroad. I know how tough it is to enter into these markets in Asia, Africa and South America and to operate there, so I would like to place on record the contributions of the mining sector to Canada's prosperity today.

As we did in the past, we are once again banking on the mining sector going forward too. The single biggest technology change that is available to us to fight climate change is the energy transition in adopting battery-operated electric vehicles and also in adopting a battery for energy storage, making our solar and wind energy projects much more viable. Again we call upon the mining sector to contribute in developing critical minerals in Canada. We have announced our critical mineral strategy, which I think was in part developed in consultation with the mining sector in Canada.

On that, we can have discussions with Ms. McDonald later on, offline, because this study is on the operations abroad, with 730 Canadian companies operating in many different countries, especially in South America and Africa.

My question to Ms. McDonald is this: What kinds of competition are you finding these days in developing mines abroad?

Having been born in a developing country, I really appreciate that mining projects bring much more economic development to the local community than any other aid given to these poor countries. With the changing global scenario, what are the challenges you are finding, and what kind of competition are you finding, for Canadian companies setting up mining projects in Africa, South America and other countries?

[Lisa McDonald]

Thank you.

Certainly Canadian mining companies are operating in extremely complex environments around the world.

I'll pass it over to Jeff Killeen, my colleague, to elaborate.

[Jeff Killeen, Director, Policy and Programs, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada]

Thank you, Lisa.

Thinking of our membership base, the exploration and development companies that operate in and outside of Canada, that is a critical part of the supply chain, and it is arguably one of the more capital-risky and labour-intensive parts of the business. A Canadian exploration company that moves outside of Canada is obviously, in most cases that we represent, a smaller business. It would be considered a small or medium-sized enterprise at best, and it often has a relatively small management group.

Having the skills to be able to operate on the ground from a technical perspective is often where these companies come from. Learning the capacity to operate outside of Canada in foreign jurisdictions with different regulatory processes is not a small challenge in and of itself, and it is obviously something that we as an association try to help our members do with some of the pieces that Ms. McDonald has mentioned already. Certainly it is a challenging environment for a small company with a small contingency to look at a foreign country and a foreign regulatory process and be able to manage through that. Then you add on the fact that—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I'm sorry; I have one more question for Ms. McDonald—two things, actually. One is the availability of capital for Canadian small and medium-sized mining companies going abroad.

Second, in any given sector, given the large number of companies operating, there will be some black sheep companies that don't adhere to the code of conduct to which your association subscribes. What do you do in those cases?

[Jeff Killeen]

On your first question with respect to access to capital, it is obviously something that is required for these businesses to move forward, because most exploration companies are non-revenue-generating, so without new investment coming into the company, there is really no feasibility to move forward.

We saw this market turn south or downturn with respect to the overall broader markets in 2022, and the amount of capital raised by the sector generally was down, I think, over 25% or 30% year over year. The overall access to capital for exploration is starting to squeeze.

Arguably as well, when you think of projects outside of gold and copper, some of the more traditional commodities, and look into rare earths or some of the critical minerals, the lead time for exploration, the amount of time for development and for that return of potential revenues to the market is even more protracted. It is even more challenging if a smaller company is looking for investment and is looking for lithium or rare earths, because that overall production scheme is more complex and the time is more expansive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We go to Mr. Savard-Tremblay for six minutes.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here and hello to my colleagues.

We have the pleasure of discussing this matter, although I'm not sure “pleasure” is the right word.

I have had the opportunity to visit mining regions in Chile and Colombia. That is why I insisted that the committee conduct this study. I have heard stories of local populations being driven out, water and air being poisoned, and persons allegedly being assassinated by the private security services of these mining companies. These projects are often accepted by local populations in exchange for promises of jobs. They are often empty promises, however, because the mining companies also bring in their own staff.

My question is for Ms. Coumans, from MiningWatch Canada. Please be concise because I have a number of questions for you.

First of all, is it true that in many cases these mining companies are Canadian on paper only? In fact, the legal and tax environment in Canada, as well as the speculative benefits of the Toronto Stock Exchange, make Canada a real flag of convenience for mining companies the world over who register here to obtain certain benefits.

[Catherine Coumans]

Let me just answer two things.

First of all, in my presentation I gave an awful lot of a variety of both environmental and human rights issues and I named many countries. All of those have actual cases behind them, and we will be providing a brief with far more information.

Yes, there is a really big problem, and, yes, there is also this very interesting phenomenon of a lot of companies having headquarter in Canada but not having much more here than an office mailbox.

In fact, I'm in Vancouver right now on exactly such a case. I'm here for a conference on the oceans, and Canada is now moving into deep seabed mining. There's a Canadian company called The Metals Company that is pushing deep seabed mining to go ahead. If you go to their headquarters, basically all you find there is a mailbox. There is no person there. We were there the day before yesterday.

It is definitely an issue that companies headquarter in Canada for tax reasons. It's sometimes called snow washing. There are other reasons as well. There is expertise that exists in Canada, but they have very little actual presence here.