Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I also want to thank all of you for being here today and sharing your compelling stories with us. Just when I start to think I'm getting a handle on this issue, another curve ball comes past me suggesting that there's some other situation that could result in someone thinking they were Canadian and at some point having someone tell them that they're not.
We've talked about short-term and long-term and different solutions, trying to come up with something that works. What I'm hearing is that there are actually three levels: immediate term, meaning today, tomorrow, even yesterday—Even amendments to legislation take time; it doesn't happen immediately. I think immediately the minister has made a commitment to deal with people on a case-by-case basis, as they come forward. That commitment was made in January, and maybe it should have been made five or ten years ago, but I think it is a step in the right direction.
The medium term, I guess, would possibly be making amendments to the existing legislation. That is something that could happen. I don't know who said “Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” When people push, saying “Give me a brand-new act or give me nothing”, let them be careful what they wish for, because up until now it has been nothing, rather than a new act. And in the longer term there needs to be a new act.
There's almost a symmetry to the dates, too: 1947 to 1977 to 2007—kind of a 30-year cycle.
Ms. Eden, you made a couple of comments that I found very interesting, because my constituency office deals with people coming in with all kinds of problems, in the simple suggestion that no one should be informed verbally by some non-expert, quite frankly, of something as profound as not being a Canadian citizen. I would think if you went to the hospital and they did a DNA test and had some question about whether your parents are actually who you always thought they were, the nurse probably wouldn't blurt that out to you as you were sitting in the waiting room. There would be a process.
I think that's something that clearly ought to be addressed immediately—