In response, perhaps I could illustrate the points more clearly for committee members. The witnesses who came before us raised the issue of statelessness, and Ms. Avvy Go came forward and stated:
In our clinic, a lot of the stateless individuals are former citizens of Vietnam. Many of them have been in Canada for a long time. Some of them, for whatever reason, lost their Canadian permanent resident status at some point. Many have mental health issues. They had some criminality linked to their mental health, lost their permanent resident status, and became stateless because they have no country to return to.
This is what it's trying to remedy. In those situations, for example, what will happen to people when we deem them to be stateless? They are neither here nor there. They can't go back to their country of origin and they can't be here in Canada. We do have an international obligation through the United Nations 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which Canada has signed on to.
If we're going to follow international conventions, as has been stated, then there has to be some position to address that. Right now, as it stands, we don't have a position to address it, and this amendment seeks to remedy that, Mr. Chair.