Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is one of two very substantive changes we are offering up as an amendment to the bill. First—and I think it's important to do this every once in a while—on this issue I compliment both opposition parties for providing some clarification, from their perspective, on their feelings on the cessation issue. In particular, Mr. Lamoureux's amendment, which follows ours in clause 18, is very similar to the amendment we are suggesting here. I want to thank him and obviously those who put the amendment together. It's very close to the resolution we think will satisfy the issue of cessation.
Our amendment specifically states that a permanent resident who acquired that status through a favourable refugee determination cannot lose that status or be made inadmissible based on an IRB cessation determination. That includes changed country of origin circumstances.
In other words, it's the whole issue of retroactivity, as it were, and as it was put by a number of the witnesses who came forward, especially from a legal perspective, identifying this concern. It was never the government's intent, from the beginnings of the bill in itself, to suggest or in any way have it be interpreted that refugees who came to this country who were successful in their applications would actually potentially have those applications or the identified refugee status removed because of what may transpire in their country three, four, or five years down the road.
We are convinced, and I'll perhaps ask those ministry folks who are here to confirm, that this change will indeed end and eliminate that concern.