Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Etobicoke—Lakeshore for that very important question and for putting things somewhat into perspective.
I would like to do a little bit of comparison. Let us compare it to the Canada Health Act of 1985. Currently, provinces and territories are able to establish minimum periods of residence before an individual can receive health care in the region. It is typically three months. They impose a waiting period of three months for people to be in a specific province before they can get health care. They have the right to do that as provinces.
This would basically give them the same opportunity on the social assistance side in those cases that are not extreme. Those families who require assistance as legitimate refugees in this country are not going to be affected. As I said earlier, those who are here as subjects of human trafficking are not going to be affected. What this measure would do is simply to give the provinces the opportunity to assess and have the right to impose a short period of time, if they so choose, before providing social assistance.