Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, all, for your testimony. It was very enlightening and I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing.
My role in Parliament is the official opposition critic for citizenship and immigration, so I might ask some questions in relation to immigration policy as it intersects with this particular topic.
The federal government at this point in time is undertaking a review of its visa framework. In the last year, we've seen the government lift visa requirements for certain countries without going through the process of a formal review. The government will argue that this is because of tourism or in relation to the negotiation of a trade agreement, but a few of the countries that have had visa requirements lifted from them are countries where we know there are high instances of human trafficking. Romania is one of the countries of interest to me, and certainly Mexico as well, but Romania is a country that has incidents of this.
This morning in committee, I found out that in 2017 we had seen about 160 or so asylum claims come from Romania. Since the visa was lifted in December 2017 to now, so in a six-month period, we've seen over 1,000 claims being made. We've seen increased incidents of trafficking rings from these countries.
I would like to get any thoughts from those of you who have expertise in this area. The comments were made around immigration policy, and thankfully, Canada isn't the United States. As this visa framework is being implemented, do you have any advice for the government in terms of what criteria should be looked at when considering whether or not a country should have a visa imposed upon it or lifted as it relates to incidents of human trafficking?
Perhaps, given the silence, I'll clarify. We imposed a visa on Romania in 2014. Part of the reason for this was a concern around human trafficking. Part of imposing a visa on a country is you are telling the country it needs to do certain things in order to have access into our country. It's actually a carrot—or a bit of a stick, I would say—to ensure there are steps in place so that women aren't being trafficked out of the country.
I'm wondering if there are any thoughts on best practices for this, because Canada does have a role to play in terms of this type of policy from an international perspective.