Thank you for being here today. This is a difficult subject, and I certainly appreciated the presentations that were made and, as has been said already, the very compelling stories.
One of the difficulties of being the sixth questioner is that you have to try to think up new questions when all your other questions were asked already.
As I listened to your presentations, I deciphered really that that there are two issues here that are related. One is the issue of sanctuary, which predates Canada. I mean, it not only predates our current policies on refugees, but it predates the whole country. I respect the fact that churches feel that they have a right and a responsibility to deal with the notion of sanctuary and to extend it at certain times. I also appreciate the fact that you don't feel you have the right to negotiate it away somehow or to negotiate quotas of those who will be offered sanctuary. There's a fundamental incongruency there that I see.
The second issue really is public policy in terms of the refugee determination process that we have in Canada. I've only been on this committee for six months, and I am learning about the complexities of these issues and sometimes, quite frankly, the absurdities that result from applying processes that take years and years to answer questions that seem pretty obvious in the first place. I've said that the longer I'm in Ottawa, the more sense Monty Python makes.
The RAD was passed by Parliament. The RAD has not been introduced by the government. I do not ask this from a partisan point of view, but my question is this. As those who are practitioners in this area, why do you think that has happened? Why do you believe that the RAD has not been implemented, when it was passed by Parliament four years ago? I'd like to hear a quick response from anyone who's interested.