Thank you, Madam Chair.
Like my colleagues, I would like to thank you for being here on such short notice. It's also a pleasure for us to welcome you in the same circumstances.
My colleague talked about public appointments. I previously sat on the Citizenship and Immigration Committee. As parliamentarians, we made many recommendations concerning appointments. It is part of committee practice to welcome the new board members or the chair on a regular basis.
You aren't unaware that there was a crisis last year. If you hadn't come here to talk about your role as an impartial and professional board and about the appointment process management role, as well as your concern to ensure that the process is conducted in a non-partisan manner, I might not have asked you any questions on the subject.
I find it hard to understand how you can approve a process that was non-partisan and how, following the only report that Mr. Harrison prepared on immigration, you dismissed out of hand the non-partisanship of the board member selection committee, a process in which the community got involved, that is to say the Barreau, the various groups concerned with immigration and the academics. Last year, a crisis led one chair and a selection panel to resign. The people from the community are still making submissions, and opinions have been expressed by parliamentarians.
You're resisting all that by putting in place the new process enabling a representative of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, in fact the minister, to sit on the selection panel. How do you view the participation of the minister's office in the process of selecting immigration board members? How do you explain that decision?