Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's comments, but they remind me of a recent response of his in a similar situation. In response to a Montreal Gazette editorial, the minister wrote not unlike that which he said in response to my comments today:
It is simply incorrect to suggest that C-31 includes any new powers, or loosens any of the criteria in Canada's immigration laws pertaining to the removal of refugee status.
However, as Professor Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall Law School pointed out in his response to the minister, who, I suspect, will have a response to that as well, the issue we are concerned about has to do with the cessation provision in Bill C-31 which authorizes the stripping of people's refugee status that underpin their permanent residency, thus making them subject to deportation. As Professor Rehaag noted:
This is a sweeping change to Canadian refugee law, one that puts the permanent residence of tens of thousands of recognized refugees at risk.
While this may not be the sweeping change that has been so characterized, it clearly is a change, unlike that which the minister himself so characterized.