Fabulous. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The quote reads:
Jinny, your point around statelessness is something that witnesses have pointed out. It's a concern that ministry officials have pointed out as to why they support the amendments that have been put forward. I think all of us around this table heard very clearly from the United Nations' representative that indeed we need to set this bill up so that it does not put individuals in a position of statelessness. That's what the amendments do. Unfortunately, we need to go back into the House of Commons to get those amendments into the bill itself. But I appreciate your comments on that, because that is where we're driving to in working through this.
As to your final piece about the bill needing work, that's why the amendments are here and that's why we're going to go back to the House of Commons, Mr. Chairman, and that's why we'll come back here, once we've been through the House of Commons, to get this bill passed with the amendments necessary to strengthen the bill itself and the legislation it carries with it.
So clearly, on April 23 the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the lead from the government side, the Conservative side, spoke of amendments publicly and said that we even had heard comments from witnesses about these amendments. Earlier I thought maybe I was losing my mind, because these amendments had never been spoken of, had never been seen, were just kind of shown, but truly, these amendments were spoken of and were presented to witnesses, and witnesses had an opportunity to see them and comment on them.
So, Mr. Chair, for us to now say that we cannot make reference to any amendments because they weren't officially moved...that's because Mr. Dykstra, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Immigration, clearly stated here that that's because we now know that the amendments will be beyond the scope of what this committee can do, so we need to go to the House to get permission.
So clearly these amendments were presented—I'm not going to say moved because they weren't moved. They were presented to the committee and to the witnesses, and the witnesses were questioned on them.
Mr. Chair, I don't believe that Madame Groguhé is out of order to mention them.