Let's separate this out. I'll answer by sections.
First of all, let's be clear: unless you put an amendment into the act, which you could easily do--you could put something in saying nothing in this provision allows the minister to issue an instruction with respect to an individual applicant--the wording of the legislation does allow the minister to make a decision with respect to an individual applicant. There's no doubt.
As I've said, there was a case in the Federal Court called Cha, where one of my colleagues relied upon something that a minister had said when the current IRPA was enacted in 2002. The Federal Court said, “We always consider what the minister says, but at the end of the day we look at what the legislation says, and that's what we interpret.”