Thank you, Chair.
I'm supportive of this amendment. In earlier discussions with officials on some of the other amendments that were made to this bill, which were substantive, part of what we heard was that there's a ballpark but there's really not a clear line of sight on how many people would be impacted by the amendments that have been made to this bill so far.
I understand that some of the government subamendments that were made to the NDP amendments were essentially to clarify and put some guardrails around some of these things. Even though we might not have as clear a line of sight on how many people this would impact as compared to what would be the case with the original scope of the bill, there were clear definitions around whom it would apply to and under what circumstances.
Because we don't have a clear line of sight right now on how many people are impacted, where I can see this particular amendment having benefit to government operations is on consular services.
With the original scope of the bill, I think the government had a pretty good line of sight on how many people would be impacted and who they were. What I worry about is that, now that we have expanded the scope to potentially tens of thousands of people, I would not like to see our government in a situation of having to provide consular services to a new Canadian citizen who might be in a thorny political situation or something because we have not defined whom this could apply to.
As my colleague Mr. Kmiec said, I do think this amendment falls within the spirit of some of the other amendments that have been made, particularly around the substantive presence test. We've already qualified whom this would apply to with the substantive presence test. We're now adding another qualification.
I think this is also in alignment with other types of definitions that are included in broader immigration policy. This type of information is looked at in terms of applications to come to the country and in various other circumstances beyond citizenship. It's not as though we're setting a new precedent here.
I would urge colleagues to support this amendment. Because we have now broadened the scope of this bill so much, and we don't have a clear line of sight on how many people it applies to, it behooves us to ensure that we have all the guardrails in place so that there aren't serious unintended consequences, particularly given that we have not had time to study this bill or to have witnesses appear and testify on some of these expansions in scope.
I urge my colleagues, particularly those from the government, to support this amendment. I think this amendment would be helpful to the government in particular. I think that, without it, we are lacking a guardrail on qualification.
Thank you.