It is up to the government to make this decision, but one must add that it is not only the officials or the people who work at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration who make it.
Second, I would say that the current situation is different from that of 2002.
For example, there were real questions about how to manage the already extraordinary backlog that the IRB faced in those days.
So I think the government has explained the reason for its decision. It is, I think, a different question as to whether or not there's consensus on why that decision was taken.