Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't really want to belabour this point either. My colleague mentioned the discretionary powers for the minister. I've spoken about it already extensively, and I don't want to speak about it much more. This clause increases further discretionary powers for the minister and allows the minister to suspend processing or treat an application as abandoned if a person doesn't respond within the prescribed timeline. But there are many reasons why someone may not be able to respond.
I can't really know the motivation on this for certain, but it looks like it's another example of how this government is trying to deal with the backlog, because we know there is a huge backlog. If someone's not responding within whatever prescribed timeline is set out, then their application is deemed as withdrawn or abandoned and gotten rid of, deleted from the list and deleted from the backlog. There are many other ways to actually get rid of the backlog. You actually process the applications, not create side doors and back doors to say that applications have been abandoned as a way to get rid of the backlog.
That's all I'll say.