Thank you.
Thank you all for being here today.
I'm going to turn to Mr. Thomson and pick up where Mr. Schmale left off.
You talked a lot about what's happening abroad, in various examples. We were just talking about the proposed ombudsperson. We still haven't seen that person yet, for some reason, after a year, but coincidentally there was an article in The Globe and Mail today about Canadian resource companies abroad and their actions.
We've heard around this committee room that within Canada we have some of the best indigenous engagement and consultation processes around the globe. We still have a long way to go, I think, but here we have Canadian companies acting one way within Canada and yet, many of them, acting quite differently abroad.
Some may say they're just trying to do what's in their best interest, but it's clear from this article that it would be in their best interest to act as responsible corporate citizens abroad.
We have an example of Tahoe Resources in Guatemala, which now has had a very large mine shut down—they are in dire straits because of that—because the Guatemalan government said that they didn't consult with indigenous peoples properly. There are other examples of the same sort of thing happening.
I wonder whether you could comment on the interests of Canadian companies acting abroad and what indigenous engagement policies they're using, what they should be doing and how it can be brought back to this office of an ombudsperson that we're still waiting to see.