Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not a lawyer, but I'm generally familiar, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, I was not the deputy then and I have no knowledge.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know, Mr. Chairman.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. My minister has discussed this matter with her Quebec counterpart. I've also spoken to Quebec's deputy minister. We have assured them that we intend to follow through on our plans and they took us at our word.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As the minister said in her news release of April 8, the government has articulated a number of principles that will be used to formulate the ministerial instructions. First, on the basis of input from federal agencies such as the Bank of Canada and HRSD, organized labour, employers, and the provinces, we will develop a list of priority occupations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As is the case with everything the department does, we're subject to the rules of the charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act. We've had no difficulty having members of the bar suggest to us when there's a potential problem. So we believe that while the department will not discriminate on these bases, because we respect the law and the charter, if there's ever a mistake in that area we will be taken to Federal Court very quickly.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the rules are fairly clear. Any piece of legislation, regulation, ministerial instruction, or decision by a public servant has to be charter-compliant. The Federal Court Act says that without exception, all of these decisions, by whatever level, are subject to review by the Federal Court.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, we have no intention of changing the number of applications we accept until the instructions have been issued and we see how the system works. Nevertheless, we agree that it would be logical in future to accept more applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely, sir. We would not want to act without consulting the provinces.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you remember?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Normally, anywhere from 240,000 to 265,000.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry, but I misunderstood you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, the minister and the department certainly intend to deal with the backlog as quickly as possible. However, there are a number of variables to contend with each year, notably the number of people who file temporary requests for acceptance. This adds to the backlog of work since the same individuals process both categories of applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As Ms. Finley noted, we looked into the possibility of addressing the problem simply by increasing the number of points given and by changing the way points are allocated internally. We concluded that the act itself needed to be changed to limit the number of applications that are processed every year.