Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Saul, you talked about a discussion on citizenship and what citizenship is all about. My fear is that with Canada's new government—they are afraid to use the word “Conservative” because they don't want to use the old brand, and we all know what this is—I'm not sharpening the knives here, Parliamentary Secretary Komarnicki. My fear is that once we start opening the dialogue of citizenship and what is citizenship, we might give Canada's Conservative government the opportunity to say that if you're out of the country for a couple of years, too bad, so sad, you're not a citizen any more. We all remember what happened last summer with the Lebanon crisis, where there were certain individuals who certainly spoke out, and they had bitter tastes in their mouths about people who might have been out of the country for five or six years, and they said you're no longer a citizen.
I'm sure Mr. Chapman will probably jump up and down when he's given citizenship and hopefully some time we'll be able to resolve this, and maybe the Prime Minister will do the honourable thing and step up to the plate and ask for forgiveness from the lost Canadians.
My whole fear with that is that when we start opening this can of worms that's called “what is citizenship”, we're going to have people from all sides coming and saying you don't live in this country and you shouldn't be a citizen. I'm just wondering if you, on behalf of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, could comment on that.