Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
This deals with the situation where the accused is not a citizen. Given the incredible pressures on non-citizens—and this could be, of course, permanent residents—they may not understand the impacts of accepting a plea bargain or the conditions the court has put in place for accepting a guilty plea, as it's more legalistically known. This could have serious implications under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The effect of my amendment is therefore to ensure that any accused in that situation is fully informed of the other repercussions that are outside the Criminal Code, and of accepting a plea bargain that could have the consequences of denying them citizenship. They could then be seen as inadmissible on the grounds of serious criminality, because any sentence of more than six months is considered serious criminality even though in a common-sense understanding, an accused person who's not a citizen might not understand that.
That comes out of a lot of the evidence we heard, particularly the Association for Canadian Clinical Legal Education submission.
Thank you.