Mr. Speaker, the next group of petitions come mainly from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and they contain several hundred signatures. The petitions are with regard to the Citizenship and Immigration Act with respect to the distribution of holy books established in 1998 allowing for books to be displayed for new citizens to take but did not allow for people to hand the said books to these new citizens.
They say that in regard to that, the voluntary non-intrusive policy that was working had no serious complaints leveled against it, and also in regard to the pluralistic environment in Canada, they say that the recent decision to ban the availability of holy books was made unilaterally despite a previous track record of discussion and open dialogue between the Canadian Bible Society and the Citizenship Commission. They ask Parliament to order the Citizenship Commission to return to the previous policy that was in place and had been in place since 1998.