Of course, our recommendation is to eliminate Bill C-31 as a practice. Bill C-31 did not only negatively impact Roma. In fact, the safe country list constitutes all the countries that are under the European Union, as well as Mexico and the United States. Most of the countries were arbitrarily placed on the list. After the removal.... The visa that was imposed on Hungary and Romania was a direct result of the fear of Roma coming to Canada.
Moving forward, definitely our recommendation is to eliminate Bill C-31, but if for whatever reason that's not possible, I think definitely we should reinstate the provision that was part of the Minister of Immigration's mandate, which is to revise the criteria that decide whether a country is safe or not. This is not only for Roma but also for minorities at large in most of these countries where we definitely see a rise in the far right. We see a rise of anti-Semitism as well in those countries. In those countries there is also a strong homophobic sentiment. I think we need to define the criteria under which a country is considered safe, and for whom.