Much as I would love to speak for the former government....
First, let me be cautious. There's a different fact situation now, and that's the argument I really want to make to you. For any of you who may have the view that we should proceed cautiously in these matters in terms of dealing with immigration, when....
Number one, I think CIC has the view, rightly or wrongly--in my view wrongly, but my view is not that important, frankly--that these people don't qualify for country of asylum class. You ask why they don't use subsection 25(1). At the time when this committee had its last deliberations, and at the time when the last minister changed the regulations, there weren't 188 people left, there were thousands of people left. Perhaps the advice at the time was to say that the most intelligent way to proceed was to set up a class where Canadians could sponsor relatives, and just widen the class.
In my humble submission, it's a reasonable proposition, and it probably would have resulted in, it's fair to say, more people coming to our country in this class, except for the fact that other countries, the United States in particular, also stepped up, and we find ourselves where we are right now.
So I can't speak to why previous ministers did what they did, but knowing the advice they got, and knowing the reality of the situation, that's probably why it was.
Finally, I wouldn't worry about, as you say, the precedent, or the floodgates opening up now. There are 188 people left. We're not talking about, as you say, a massive precedent, or opening the door perhaps more widely than some Canadians would be prepared to do.