Great, I'll address my colleague, Mr. Sarai's concern about the committee mandate.
Actually, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has the power to...and in its mandate is written “study issues of its own choosing”. Under the list of what may be done under that is “statute law relating to CIC”, and other matters relating to the mandate, management, organization, or operation of CIC. In terms of the argument that this does not fall within the committee mandate, it's actually right there. I think it's pretty obvious that this motion falls in there.
With regard to the comment from my colleague from the NDP, I appreciate her comments and her support on this. On the request for a legal opinion, I think that was the objective of the motion as it was written. I think it would be very interesting—and I'd love to work collaboratively with my colleagues across the table—to bring in legal experts to talk about whether this would in fact constitute a charter violation. I think that is very timely.
As well, I know there were concerns with regard to budget. The minister raised concerns about the budget. This type of a report would help the minister decide whether the program should stay as it has been for the last 30 years, or change in the context of the government's upcoming budget, which I know has a lot of requests for funding.
Then, with regard to some of the other components, my colleague from the NDP did ask the minister a question with regard to whether she would support the motion, if there has been a decision made on this. The minister clearly said that there hasn't, but more concerning is that he said he didn't know the numbers of people affected. I think that these are all points that could be studied within the scope of the motion as presented.
To reiterate, if my colleague—