Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's a really important question. In the place of religious and cultural education, not only are Tibetan children not getting the kind of education that is relevant to their own culture, their own history and their own world view. Tibetan children are actually being given a very politicized, extremely strong propagandistic version of the Chinese Communist Party's world view.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. The Chinese government has been very effective and rather successful at mobilizing big data totalitarianism and various transnational tools of tyranny to silence Tibetans abroad in the world and also to repress Tibetans inside Tibet. One key tool they use to achieve this is by linking Tibetans living in the diaspora to their family members in Tibet.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much. The Chinese government has been responding to the world starting to criticize the institution of colonial boarding schools. We have noticed that, after the United Nations sent a communication to Beijing, after seeing news of hearings being held in the U.S. Congress, and now in the Canadian Parliament, the Chinese government is really taking this issue seriously.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I will just quickly add also that, two months ago, the United Nations released a very strong statement on this subject demanding that the Chinese government abolish the entire colonial system of boarding schools in Tibet. Just yesterday actually, the German government, from the foreign office, took a stand and made a very strong call to the Chinese government directly that it should close down the colonial boarding school system as well.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I also feel that the response from the Canadian Parliament, so far, has been very encouraging to us. The fact is that we are holding this hearing and that the Tibetan people are following this event. We can assure you that people inside Tibet, who really have no voice because they are being crushed by the Chinese government, are following what the Canadian government, the Parliament, and other governments around the world are taking action on.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I understood the gist of it. I missed a bit of the translation for the last part of the question, I think.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you so much. There are no words to stress the importance of language to an individual, to a society, to a people and to a family. Sometimes I think we make a mistake when we think of language as a tool for communication between two people or between two societies. Language is much more than a tool.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the two cases are very similar when it comes to the intent of the government. The main goal of the government and many of the strategies that the government is using are also very similar. Some of the tactics might be a little bit different, but most of the strategies are the same.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If I may add very quickly to what my colleague Sherap just said, in terms of doing extensive research on the ground on exactly the scope and scale of the impact, it's very difficult to do because the Chinese government does not allow any foreign researcher, scholar, independent investigator or journalist to go into Tibet.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's the implication that many of us really deeply worry about, because it is one of those impacts that are difficult to observe and difficult to notice. Let's imagine. In her case, students who are 11 to 12 years old right now have already switched to Mandarin as their first language.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. I'd like to thank the distinguished members of the committee for this opportunity. Among all of the tools of colonial dispossession wielded by European settlers against indigenous populations in North America, residential schools stand out for the scope, scale and persistence of their impact.