Mr. Speaker, first of all, I appreciate my hon. Liberal colleague's question. I know he is very conscientious, but the situation needs to be examined closely. By no means do I wish to protect the Conservatives—the members heard my speech—but nevertheless, they did inherit the situation that was created by the previous Liberal government. On several occasions we asked the Liberals to update the entire immigration and appeal system. They ignored our requests. Of course they are willing to be more conciliatory now than when they were in power.
Thus, asking the right-wing Conservatives—whose ideology makes them more inclined to turn everyone back, regardless of the individual situation—to update the legislation, feels like quite an uphill battle.
We had nearly reached an agreement with the Conservatives. I understand that the media situation gave them an opportunity to further their own right-wing ideology, but once again, they inherited the situation from the Liberals, who were unable to improve and update the system. If it had been updated, if we could have welcomed these people and processed their files quickly, we probably would not be in this situation.