Citizenship and Immigration committee  You can always improve. I didn't have a shopping list. Let me say that the mandate was professionalization of the institution. I think we were there. The mandate was a merit selection process independent of a political process. We were there. The mandate talked about governance, getting out of a backlog, and bringing institutions, both the public service and the GICs, to the highest standard.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Maybe the word “liability” in English is not what I meant. It's not a liability so much as, first of all, it's we who did that, it's not me. I'm very careful. It's everyone on the board. I had a sense that I had accomplished what I promised, and to wait for another nine months...I don't think the board would have been well served.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can't speak for the political; I can't speak for ministers. All I can say is that Minister Finley and I worked together only 60 days. But the previous minister was always available. He always listened to my representations. Was I successful? I don't think so.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's my opinion.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know. Let me be quite clear here. When I recommended a candidate and gave the situation to the minister about what was at stake, I never asked them—They didn't account to me. I was a public servant; I provided advice, and I stated the facts. What happened thereafter I was not privy to, nor did I engage—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I agree. It would be three years, five years, and two years—maximum, ten. I think it was Mr. Harrison's recommendation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I think I discussed the 3:1 ratio at the last appearance. I had a discussion with one minister in terms of costs and benefits and in terms of coming to a conclusion about how many candidates you need. What was missing prior to putting in the new regime was that you had 300 people on the list and you needed only 20.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wasn't here before. All I'm saying is that we had a lot of complaints about how people were selected six, seven years, or eight years ago. The previous chair has written a book on that, and he makes reference to the quality, and so on. The impression from my managers and the people I worked closely with was that we were getting there and had professionalized to a higher degree than in the past.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  None.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I stand corrected there, but I think we were climbing to 26,000, and going at a rate of a possible 1,000 a month on the refugee side. On the appeals side it's different.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, no, you can't—Let me paraphrase this so that we have a benchmark for when I use the word “backlog”. The ideal on the refugee side is to have a decision rendered in six months. To do that, if I have all the members in place, in six months, the cases in waiting—they wouldn't be called a backlog—would need to be at 16,000.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but in the four years I was in the position, we never reached it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I think there are two factors. The board was structured the way it was for 15 years, and having worked with it, I had come to the conclusion that we did not need the position of executive director; we definitely needed to change the accountability in the chair's office and clarify the roles and responsibilities.