Again, with tribute to the work of my colleague Jenny Kwan, my plan is to oppose this particular clause. The reason for that is that the government projects certain service standards within Citizenship and Immigration. One of the few accountability mechanisms that there are.... I won't belabour the point too much, but all anyone has to do is to tune in to question period, and they don't even have to do that. They could probably just go to the local coffee shop, hockey rink or wherever, and they're going to hear people talking about some of the very real frustrations they've had with getting timely service from the immigration department, whether it's for their permanent residency, citizenship, travel visas or whatever it happens to be.
One of the few modicums of accountability for the government—which is clearly insufficient already—is that there is an obligation for the government to reimburse some of the fees that people pay to IRCC under certain circumstances and when service standards aren't met. My understanding of clause 379 and, consequently, clause 381 is that they would absolve the government of its obligation to reimburse people when there have been extraordinary delays in processing their immigration request. We simply feel that's not appropriate.
That's why, if members look at clauses 379 and 381, what they'll see is that the coming into force date, if I am not mistaken, is 2017. That's because it is deliberately going back in order to retroactively absolve the government of its responsibilities.
That's why I intend to vote no on this clause and would encourage other members of the committee to consider doing the same. Thank you.