We can start. To the committee, welcome .
I had a wonderful trip to Australia. I'll give you an update. I will focus, but I want to let you know there's something relevant; that's why I'm telling you about Australia.
The APEC health meeting was there, and it was important because I had some connections to Hong Kong and Vietnam. Minister Clement and I then had some bilaterals. What was important was that the embassy allowed me to meet with women parliamentarians who had prepared their human trafficking report. The embassy had given me their human trafficking response beforehand, and their human trafficking response was far more solid than ours, so I was a little jealous thinking they were more advanced than we were.
They had a commissioner on human trafficking, and I met with her. The feedback I got was that what is on paper is on paper; in reality, there are certain things. I then came away and I met with some advocacy groups.
The commissioner of human trafficking was telling me that she came to Canada and the United States. She said that we are far more advocacy-driven than they are. She said they are laid backâyes, the report is there, and yes, we have made recommendations, but sometimes the recommendations. For example, one recommendation they made was they denied that they had a human trafficking problem; because they're an island, people who came in knew exactly what they were coming in for, but anybody who complained about it had 30 days' reprieve, got housing, and got everything paid for. In reality, when I met with the advocate group and people who were sponsored by the New South Wales government, they told me that 30 days really translates to two days. Sometimes it's two days. You come in, you report, you complain, and if the police think you are a real case, they'll let you stay for 30 days and move on; if they don't, they deport you. Their biggest problem was Thailand.
That's just to let you know that I had some interesting meetings.