Citizenship and Immigration committee  Bill C-11will have a huge impact on refugee times at the RPD. In fact, we were discussing it yesterday at our chairs' management board. As I indicated earlier, the current average wait time for a hearing is about 22.5 months. As you know, under Bill C-11 we will have to conduct

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll quickly answer. For our deputy chair position and for assistant deputy chairs, it was an external competition that was open to all permanent residents of Canada and Canadians anywhere in the world. The competition is closed, and we're in the selection process. The member po

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not exactly sure what she's referring to, but 0.5% of our caseload is comparatively small and should have a minimal impact on the overall delays, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Rubinoff might want to come in on this in a minute. It's my understanding that currently a visa application, particularly a sponsorship appeal, can be denied on a particular ground. That can come to the IAD. The IAD reviews it, hears the additional evidence, and overturns t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  An influx of refugee claimants wouldn't have an immediate impact on the immigration appeal division, because that would be handled by our refugee protection division. However, once people are granted refugee status, they become permanent residents in Canada and at that point are

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Given the volume of files that we have, we would probably need to almost double the size of the organization in order to clear out the backlog. In the current financial climate, we recognize that's not likely to happen.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do not see, as part of our responsibilities as an independent administrative tribunal, telling CIC that this is a lesson we think they should learn. We expect that CIC would pick that up from our decisions. On the other piece, I would echo what Ms. Ross said. At an appeal lev

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That would have been over the last four or five years. It was the same phenomenon, as the committee is aware, that we had at the refugee protection division. Both the IAD and the refugee protection division are Governor in Council appointees. That period of time when we were expe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe a chart was provided to the committee ahead of time in which we provided the average processing times for appeals by fiscal year. In this case it was by calendar year. For example, in 2005 our average processing time for sponsorship appeals was 8.4 months, and it has gr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As the mix changes, that can also have an impact.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We don't publish a document that goes into that level of detail, but for our own internal purposes we look at the numbers. We can provide those numbers to the committee after this morning's session, by all means.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The organization of a hearing entails ensuring the presence of a member, sometimes of an interpreter, of the appellant, of the appellant's lawyer and of the representative of the department. All of these individuals must be in one and the same place at the same time. The organiza

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would like to add that if the alternative dispute resolution hits a snag or is not successful, a hearing is always possible in the end. At least the parties will have had the opportunity, and that stage, to hear the information from both sides. This can be helpful, in circumscr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is the Board that calls the parties to a meeting...

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Indeed. It is the evaluation done by an official from the Board that determines if the case could be resolved through alternative dispute resolution measures. In such situations, the different parties are called in and it is the official who presides, and not a member of the divi