Thank you.
I move that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:
1.4 The Act is amended by adding the following after Section 23:
Members of the Senate shall not be eligible to be delegated authority unless they are an appointed member of the King's Privy Council.
I can't believe that we're here, but I think that any time this committee now has an opportunity to clarify that members of Parliament and other parliamentarians, particularly the Senate, do not have delegated authority to make decisions that affect either citizenship or other immigration applications, we should avail ourselves of doing that.
There are pending court cases now, given that a member of the Senate took it upon herself to assume that she had delegated authority to make these types of decisions. Given what's happened before and what our committee has been seized with this year, I think it's important to articulate in acts that there has to be a clearly delineated line of authority to make immigration decisions, be it, as in this case, the Citizenship Act or otherwise.