As I said, Canada has had a great tradition on this and tried last year to get as many as they could. Some have come; for other reasons, other countries stepped up, so we are where we are now.
There are a couple of things in connection with the convention on statelessness. First, both Canada and the Philippines are contracting states to that convention. That is a fact. I think we can read as a matter of record into this hearing that these people are currently stateless. I don't think I need to leave any evidence to convince you of that.
Canada has previously indicated, as a point of fact, a willingness and a readiness to reduce statelessness in the world by signing the convention. We are a contracting state. We said we'll reduce the amount of statelessness in the world. So are the Philippines.
Finally, the UN General Assembly has recognized the basic human rights of individuals who are not nationals of the state in which they now reside. That's exactly the case of the Viet Phi. While we're not bound by law in any way to admit these people simply because they're stateless--otherwise we would have to do that in each and every case--given all the facts that people have put in front of us and otherwise, it's certainly yet another persuasive argument saying that whether we do it by change in regulation, whether we do it by country of asylum class, whether we do it by subsection 25(1)--whether we do it by whatever approach you deem appropriate, frankly--the fact that we have signed and obliged ourselves to reduce statelessness, and the fact that other countries and the UN General Assembly have done the same, is yet another argument for us to do the right thing.