Foreign Affairs committee  I can only give it to you at the country level, so it would be the amount that we would have been spending in Myanmar.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, we are engaged in dialogue with Canadian businesses that have links to Myanmar. This is why we are proceeding with a proposed business advisory body to provide guidance. Through our dialogue we are advising Canadian companies making them aware of the implications of the coup and the potential legal and reputational risks they would face doing business with any affiliates of the Tatmadaw.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Harris. Colleagues, that takes us to the end of our first round with the panel on Myanmar. I'm very mindful that in very short order we're going to be challenged by bells. We may have as little as 10 minutes left, but we may have a bit more. I'm wondering if you would agree to a series of very quick rounds of two minutes for each question and answer.

Foreign Affairs committee  In May 2018, the Government of Canada announced its intention to fund some $300 million in humanitarian assistance over three years for the situation in Myanmar. That three-year period comes to an end in May. How much of that money was actually spent?

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I think we all know that the military in Myanmar can be particularly brutal. Back in 1988 in their demonstration for democracy, more than 1,000 demonstrators were killed by military action. Despite that history, we see quite a large number of demonstrations in reaction to what's happened with the coup that took place on February 1.

Foreign Affairs committee  An article in Le Devoir suggests that OpenText has sold software and tools to Myanmar authorities, including tools to retrieve, process, classify and decrypt data from computers and smartphones. What assurances do we have that these tools provided by a Canadian company aren't currently being used by military authorities to exercise some form of repression on the population?

Foreign Affairs committee  As you know, we continue to provide development assistance to the poorest, the most vulnerable in Myanmar, including the Rohingya. We are also continuing our support to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. We will continue to press, at all levels, for humanitarian access. As you may know, the funding for Canada's initial three-year response to the 2017 Rohingya crisis ends on March 31, 2021, and the government will announce next steps in due course.

Foreign Affairs committee  We have focused our sanctions in this latest round of announcements on February 18 by using SEMA because we did have existing sanctions in place via SEMA, and SEMA does allow us to sanction not only entities but individuals and entities once it is clear that there are connections to the state through a grave breach of international security, which is the reason why we had our SEMA sanctions on Myanmar in the first place. The coup allowed us to add these nine individuals on February 18, as a result of our existing regulations.

Foreign Affairs committee  The first is on the current situation in Tigray, and the second is on the current situation in Myanmar. Colleagues, the clerk circulated two budgets to you, one for each of these briefings, in the amount of $775 each. That leaves us some wiggle room in case we wish to resume these studies later on.

Business of Supply  The committee needs to be talking about arms sales to Saudi Arabia. It needs to be talking about what is happening with China, Hong Kong and Myanmar, and what is happening with Yemen, which is named as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. We cannot do that work either, because of the obstruction by the government. When we hear the government say it is in fact the opposition that is preventing it, it is very clear to me that this is in fact not the case.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I know we had a whole list of countries. For instance, Uganda was one that I put forward. With what's happening in Myanmar, it might be worth revisiting there. We have only so many meetings left. We also have a number of studies before us. One of my worries is that with anything we do, there's always a time lag between when we do it and when we report.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think that there are many other cases, such as Uganda, Myanmar—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We have a unique role as a committee. I had proposed Uganda at one point. I think we should go back to Myanmar, because when we did that study the coup hadn't happened there yet. I think we have a very particular niche as a committee in that we can shed light where no one else is doing that.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The third title is “The Impact of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic on Displaced Populations: Case Studies of Venezuela and Myanmar”.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I was not saying that in reference to the Uighur situation in Xinjiang, but I think my response would be that if a company is unable to conduct meaningful human rights due diligence, whether it is Xinjiang or Myanmar or anywhere else, then that company has to stop doing business there. I think the UN guiding principles are very clear on that.