Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
This amendment, NDP-3, is also an amendment to address the issue of statelessness. In particular, this amendment is attempting to prevent individuals from becoming stateless.
Again, a number of organizations have presented to us and raised their concerns around this and felt there needed to be action taken with Bill C-6 to fix the problem. These include the Canadian Centre on Statelessness, the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, Dr. Patti Lenard, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and Legal Aid Ontario.
The issue, as I indicated, is trying to address the concern to prevent individuals from being stripped of their legal status in Canada, resulting in their being stateless. The notion of statelessness is not considered as a factor in the assessment of granting citizenship by subsection 5(4), as it applies to cases of special and unusual hardship. The unique circumstances of statelessness present a challenge with respect to applying for subsection 5(4) grants. It challenges one's legal existence by nationality, citizenship, or birth certificates. This amendment is attempting to fix that problem accordingly.
One of the issues that has been raised, which I thought was particularly useful for consideration in this regard, is from the Ontario Legal Aid Association. Andrew Brouwer actually said, and I quote:
We are certainly hopeful that the new government's renewed recognition of the importance of international law and global engagement will result in our signing the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, but there is something that we can do right now with this act to make sure that we are better protecting stateless persons and coming into better compliance with international law and norms.
To that end, three recommendations were made to which these amendments speak. Those were to provide a definition of statelessness within subsection 2(1) of the act. Then it also asks to include both a de jure statelessness as well as a de facto statelessness.
Practically speaking, the whole point of dealing with statelessness and assisting stateless persons to get protection is to make sure that every member of society has a connection to a state. There are concerns that have been expressed by various people, including those in a case in the United Kingdom that shows the problems when we have an overly legalistic and narrow definition of statelessness.
That's what these amendments are aiming to fix. Again, this is an issue I think that crosses all partisan lines because those constituents are everywhere in every part of the community.
I move the NDP-3 amendment in my name, Mr. Chair, reference number 8223108.