Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I think the genesis of this decision was that members, I believe on both sides of the House, wanted to have greater clarification on the significance of various amendments. We felt it would be wise for us to use the next couple of hours to ask questions and get a broad sense of direction.
In particular, in the first half, I think we'd like to hear from the officials on the impact of the various government amendments—what they mean, what their impact is on the system, what their impact is on refugee claimants—so that we can get a better understanding.
Going through these amendments, we have found that they have a lot of information packed into them, but we sometimes fail to understand their overall impact, specifically on people, which is really what this legislation is all about—trying to improve the system, but ultimately to protect and wherever possible expand the rights of individuals while having a timely and efficient refugee system.
This is where we are. We'd like to hear from the officials.
We can begin, I guess, with amendment G-3 and have them give us an overview of what it means, both from a system point of view and as to the individual person applying for refugee status here in Canada.