The explanation goes back to the amendments to the law that I described. These amendments were made in response to criticism from adoptive parents. Before the law was first amended in 2007, some parents were critical of the fact that they had to go through the immigration process and then the citizenship process. With Bill C-14, the comparable groups were children born abroad to Canadian parents and children adopted abroad. With the subsequent changes to the law, including the first-generation limit, the two groups were treated the same way. We continue to minimize the difference between these two groups of people born abroad. Moreover, I think that before the 2007 changes, the court had ruled that the two groups were comparable.
On December 13th, 2010. See this statement in context.