Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Minister.
I wonder if you'll just bear with me for a moment. I want to quote briefly, if I may, from a National Post article before I get into my question. It's specific to a gentleman who recently was “un-deported”, as such. He's a member of AK Kannan, which is a violent Toronto street gang named after its favourite assault rifle, the AK-47.
The article states that the Toronto police report that this gentleman was involved “in the fatal shooting of two teenagers, a meat cleaver attack, the trashing of a community centre, threats, assaults and credit card theft”. The reason that he was “un-deported” was that they made a mistake in 2005.
Other people who are frustrated by this are those in the Tamil community in particular. In a statement from the Canadian Tamil Congress, they said they were very happy to see this gentleman deported. They've been making a lot of strides in recent years to clean up the image of their community.
I have a specific question. Recently there was a motion brought forward in this committee not to deport anyone to Sri Lanka. It was a motion brought forward by a Liberal member of this committee, unanimously supported by the opposition members of this committee and opposed by the Conservative members. I'm wondering if you might comment on the effect this would have specifically on individuals who are involved in serious criminal activities or who may have participated or been involved in war crimes in Sri Lanka.