Sure, and I've certainly seen some of the commentary in the media and some of the questions that members of this committee and other members of Parliament have had about this. No, this wasn't specifically requested by the provinces. This is a facilitative amendment, as we've described.
The amendment would remove the potential of a penalty under the Canada social transfer if a province or territory chose to implement a minimum residency requirement on certain foreign nationals. The ambit is rather narrow so in that sense you're right that it's an administrative arrangement. The act is an administrative arrangement around how the Canada social transfer operates.
In terms of the background with our discussions with provinces, we've certainly had some conversations with provinces about this amendment. In fact, over the course of time when we were doing some policy work on the refugee reforms that were introduced in 2012, and looking at some of the factors that the government was concerned about around unfounded asylum claims, there were conversations with provinces about the kinds of factors that might make some of these unfounded claims attractive for claimants to make. It was in the course of those conversations that we did have a representation from one of the provinces that there was a provision in one of the federal acts—this act that we're talking about today—that would in fact limit their ability to impose such a residency requirement.
That is some of the context of the background for the government looking at this particular piece of legislation.