Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm reading from the Canadian Council for Refugees' submission. In one of the first bullets on the first page, it says, “Canada’s response to potential security threats should be founded on full commitment to human rights and should not rely on distinctions between citizens and non-citizens.”
I would say that distinctions are part of the immigration proceeding. There are distinctions based on skill. There are distinctions based on financial assets, on sponsorship, on the country of origin quotas, age. There are a lot of distinctions made when immigrants come to this country. So why not distinctions to do with criminal or terrorist association?
There's an assumption here that these certificates are issued because there's actually a case against a person with regard to breaking the law or having committed a terrorist act. But really that's not the case. The decision here, to me, is whether the person is, by association, going to be a threat to Canadian society and should be accepted into the country. Is that not correct?