Thank you very much, Mr. Telegdi, for your question. I know this is an important issue to many members, but I think it's important before we answer that directly to just review the facts.
The fact is that over the last number of years the previous government deported around 100,000 people who were not here legally--around 100,000. Many of those people were undocumented workers of the type you describe. During the 13 years that your government was in power they did not move to regularize these people, and I think that's because previous ministers understood that if you start down that path, you compromise the integrity of the system.
I think there's also concern that if you start down that path, you are putting in jeopardy relationships that we have, for instance, with the United States, where they would be very concerned about a plan to regularize people who have not come through the regular system.
The other point I would make is really a question to you. If this was such a concern for the previous government, why wasn't it part of your election platform to regularize these people? If this was the overriding concern of the previous government and they just didn't have time to do it, why wasn't it part of something you campaigned on? Obviously this does not even carry the judgment of the Liberal Party, so I don't think you can argue with credibility that this is something your party supports.
I would argue that most regular Canadians would say that people should line up. If they want to come into this country, come in by regular means, especially when we have 800,000 people waiting to get here right now in the waiting list trying to come here by regular means.