I really want to put on record that we appreciate that the minister realized that his bill did have an unintended consequence and that a move has been made to correct one part of that bill. It points to the fact that when we do things in such a hurry, there are times when there are these unintended consequences. That's why I will still urge my colleagues to take the time and do this in a more thorough way.
In this amendment we have also removed (b) and (c), and I want to point to what (b) says specifically. It says “the person has voluntarily reacquired their nationality”. That can happen for a number of reasons after a great number of years. You could have somebody come from India, let's say, and they left India—I'm just using that as an example, by the way, because I know the country—and were granted refugee status under the irregular arrivals. However, a number of years go by, let's say five, ten, and circumstances change, and by this time he has his permanent residency; that person, because he has property and other things back in India, in order to inherit that would need to have nationality back, and in this case what that person would be doing...plus it's safe now. The circumstances in the country have changed for one reason or another and that person reclaims that nationality—and there could be myriad reasons why a person does that.
I'm begging the indulgence of my colleagues across the way. Let's not close the door on this. We're not saying that this is going to happen immediately. We've already put a 12-month bar in there, so it is within a reasonable amount of time, but we shouldn't close the door. As Canadians, we have many people sitting in very highly respected positions on both sides of the House who hold nationalities from more than one country, and we accept that as part of our great Canadian heritage, because many of us have roots and connections with other nations.
I'm really hoping that my colleagues will see fit to grant this, because after all, once somebody has become a permanent resident, they should have that option open to them.
Referring to paragraph (c), currently the wording is “the person has acquired a new nationality and enjoys the protection of the country of that new nationality”. ,
In many ways, it goes with that first one, our granting them permanent residency and then eventually, citizenship. I don't think the fact that they have a nationality or protection from another country should play into this. These are very similar arguments to the ones I made in (b).
Then, of course, we have put down that final sentence “when the final determination is made within one year after the date on which the refugee protection is conferred”. So we have put a check and balance into the amendment.