Let me first of all go to the issue of the agency. We announced in the budget $18 million to do consultations. We're some distance away from actually making proposals yet. We'll be working with stakeholders and the provinces as well, and of course people who are, if you want to put it this way, victims of the system as it exists today. We're some point away yet from actually proposing specifics on that agency.
With respect to the Immigration and Refugee Board and the current process for refugee determination, I think there are a number of problems there. I think one of the problems is the fact that if you get a negative ruling at any stage in the process, it's now standard procedure to appeal to the Federal Court. Eighty percent of the Federal Court's business now has to do with immigration, and I think about 80% of the applications are turned down. But it buys time. I don't think I'm telling people here anything that will surprise them when I say that this is a tried and true strategy of lawyers who are attempting to slow down the process so that at some point they will be able to file a humanitarian and compassionate appeal. Based on the amount of time that someone has been in the country or the fact that they've had children here with somebody they've married here or whatever, this will get them a better chance to stay in the country.
The issue to me isn't whether or not we should allow people to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds or whether we should be fair to people. Of course we should. My concern is that we have this very convoluted system that people are, in some cases, misusing, and that's why I think when we talk about changes, we need to talk about changes overall so that we don't have that type of thing happening.