School in Pierrefonds—Dollard  Mr. Speaker, last week I had the pleasure of visiting children and teachers at Collège Beaubois, an elementary school and high school in my riding. The day I visited, I planted a tree with the students and the principal, Éric Rivard. Mr. Rivard then signed A Pact for the Transition, which is a wonderful initiative to reduce our ecological footprint.

Romani People  moved: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion: That the House: (a) officially recognize that the Nazis and their collaborators systematically murdered over 500,000 Romani during the Holocaust and that this atrocity constitutes a genocide against the Romani people; (b) pay tribute to those Romani who were murdered as well as the Romani survivors of persecution by the Nazis; and c) recognize August 2 as the official date to commemorate the Romani Genocide, also known as Porajmos and Samudaripen, to never forget the atrocities committed against the Romani people, the harrowing stories of victims, and the incredible strength of survivors.

Government Operations committee  I'd again like to thank the witnesses for testifying. I'd actually like to pick up on the theme that we heard about just moments ago. It's about the Uighur people. Just to share this with other members of this committee, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights and I heard very disturbing testimony on Monday and Tuesday—for seven hours on Monday and seven hours on Tuesday—from experts and in first-hand accounts of people who have been interned or have been within the concentration camps in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China.

Government Operations committee  That segues into the next question I want to ask, which is about employees. We're starting to open up our economy again, our economies within different provinces, and employees are starting to return to their workspaces. Can you speak about what's being done to make buildings safer, to make workspaces safer?

Government Operations committee  Thank you. You touched upon domestic companies. Can you elaborate a bit on the percentage of contracts going to domestic companies and give us some examples of domestic companies you're dealing with?

Government Operations committee  I'd like to thank Mr. Matthews for giving his testimony and his time here with the committee. I'll have a number of questions. Feel free, Mr. Matthews, to supplement what you were speaking about in your opening statement. You can use this time to elaborate upon that if you want to.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. That's very substantial, because we oftentimes think it's anecdotal. It's not anecdotal. That's the point I'm trying to underscore here.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  This question is for anybody who wants to answer it. It may be for the ambassador, but it's for all who are comfortable answering it. Before 2019, we were just hearing anecdotes. We know that Chinese papers were revealed in 2019. According to New York Times reporting and an independent consortium of journalists, those leaked government documents exposed a program.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are about 83 companies, big-name companies, brand name companies, named in that report. While we look at what is produced within the province, in our analysis at the same time we should also be looking at what is produced outside the province that is coming from forced labour.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Okay. Can you speak about Canadian technology, or western technology in general, supporting the surveillance of the minorities we're talking about here within the province?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't know if anybody else has contributed to that but I just want to throw one thought out while you do contribute. Can we also tie in the Chinese papers and how new information has come out which shows there's a program going on from the top. Could you factor that into your answer please?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  First of all, thank you, everybody, for joining us and providing your expert testimony. I'd like to flesh this out. We spoke about supply chains. We spoke about the province, XUAR. We didn't speak about Uighur people and other minorities who are being transferred out of the province into the mainland and how those supply chains are impacted.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  For my second question, I'd like to follow up on another point. For the Uighur people within Turkey, are there any protections that the Turkish government is providing, or do you feel that the government is not in a position to protect you from threats and other forms of harassment that can be happening within the country?

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  First off, I want to thank you both for testifying. I wish you peace, strength and fortitude. Thank you for your courage. This is very meaningful.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  You're welcome. You made an account of what happened to you personally. I wanted to know if what happened to you was the norm of what you saw within the camps. I can anticipate your answer.