Mr. Speaker, of course New Democrats concur with those who say we should not be shutting our immigration offices abroad, particularly in areas as sensitive as Iran, where we know that any engagement is a positive thing. That said, we also need to understand that sanctions can be effective. We can do both. We are able to engage with Iran in ways that would help the people of Iran. What the member points out is something unfortunate that the government has done.
I did not get to speak to this because of time, but we also have to be aware of what we are doing when it comes to technology transfer. This is an area where I would like to see a little more vigilance from our government. There are actual technologies being transferred to Iran that help the regime to monitor its citizens. We saw this during the crackdown in 2009, and it is something we need to take a look at to ensure that nothing we are exporting or selling gets into the hands of the regime, particularly the Republican Guard, that allows it to use technology transfer to monitor its citizens, after which people end up in some very dire circumstances.