Based on what's being proposed in the subamendment here, does your department foresee...? Could you perhaps clarify for the committee any potential additional people who would then come forward and ask for extensions on this?
How do I phrase this differently? What I've seen since the original fix that was put forward is that the definition keeps moving forward. Any time there's one group that gets fixes, it's, “Oh well, now there's another cohort over here that could apply.” I would rather we take a position on just having a more concise and clear definition on where to draw the line, so that we can be fair and equitable in our immigration process.
What I'm concerned about here with the subamendment is that we are essentially conferring citizenship without having to apply for citizenship to an untold number of persons, while there are literally tens of thousands of persons, hundreds of thousands of persons, in a backlog trying to come to Canada even just to immigrate as PRs.
I'm just concerned that with this amendment, we are automatically conferring citizenship to a group of persons, while at the same time there are tens of thousands—I don't know what the backlog is now—of people trying to come to the country in other ways.
Do you have a sense in the department of how many people who would be affected by this subamendment have already applied for citizenship through another stream?