In fact, then, when I hear about a $1.4 million increase and an additional increase of $2.9 million, it's not that the government isn't trying to fund. You have a number of issues. You've indicated backlog, among other things. Certainly it seems, from what I've heard, that the government has been responsive, at least to this point.
To your credit, again, I really appreciate the thoughtful way you've approached this. I'll just come back to your comment that you didn't exclude the possibility of going to the Treasury Board should that need arise, and it may well. Again, I think you've handled this with great aplomb. I salute your department for that.
I want to come back to the case count, though, if I can. I'm not an accountant like our esteemed chair, but I would tell you that as I look at the numbers here, I see you inherited 2,000 cases. You closed 2,215. We had a drop in the number of new complaints by some 350. I appreciate that might not be a number you can always control. I mean, how could you ever know the number of new complaints? The good news is that it's dropped somewhat significantly.
By the way, I also acknowledge that in the average time to deal with a complaint, you've reduced the processing time by one-third. I need to tell you that's a credit to the people you've brought into your team and their expeditious way of handling things. Again, I salute you.
I was trying to extrapolate at what point you get to the stage where you could handle things based on the efficiencies you already have. So I'm imagining this. If you closed 2,215 cases, what that means is that from the original 2,000 backlog you've reduced 700, which gives you 1,300 backlogged cases from them. Then I add to that, if I can, the number of cases you will get. You have 1,300 left and 1,650-some-odd you will deal with, so there are 3,000. Now, if you continue to deal with 2,200 the next year, that means instead of 1,300 backlogged from the 2,000, now you have something like 500 or 600 left. In other words, you're doing this exactly the right way. You're reducing it down, plus you have reduced pressure if the complaints go down, which they have.
At some point I'm trying to understand.... Again, forgive me, because I don't understand the average handling time of a case and what your averages are. Could you imagine that you'd get to the point where your backlog is acceptable? I would ask you what an acceptable backlog is, if that's even the right expression, and where you can manage it with resources, knowing that you're one-third more efficient in terms of case-handling time and that you've handled 700, so you've also handled one-third more of the backlogged cases. I mean, you're going to have to be making the complaints soon just so you'll have to have some to deal with, I almost wonder.
I don't mean that to be facetious, because this is serious business, but could you comment on that and help me out a little bit, please?