Certainly in the human rights context, there are commissions that will assist people in gathering evidence and determining whether or not there's a prima facie case. Certainly when it comes to those types of violations that on the face of it would seem less severe or less extreme than the retraction and withdrawal of citizenship, the government is prepared to put agencies in place that will assist citizens or permanent residents in building a case.
When it comes to this issue, it seems as though, in the ordinary case, Citizenship and Immigration Canada is engaged in a process whereby they entertain applications for refugee status and citizenship status. The obligation is on the citizen to qualify, and the applicant brings forward the materials. What we're suggesting is that there's a fundamental conceptual distinction between the ordinary applicant for status and a person whose citizenship has been lost or taken away.
Folks who were citizens or ought to have been considered citizens in the first place, once they can make out a prima facie claim that they fall into one of these obvious lost Canadian categories, ought to be accorded higher-level procedural protections than are accorded to the ordinary status applicants. There ought to be policies in place that will guide the discretion of the minister so that the delegates of the minister have an understanding of their obligations that are different from the ordinary way in which the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration proceeds. There's a fundamental conceptual shift, and there ought to be a principal dividing line and some policies in place to assist the ministry delegates in making those decisions.