I'd like to make a general comment. The Canadian Council for Refugees was not consulted by the minister, or the department, in advance of that announcement. Despite the fact that our organization has consistently raised our concerns on this matter and given input, we have never been consulted about what should be put in place. We were not part of the review process for the Harrison report.
We have looked at this process from the outside, and we have seen considerable problems. The impression we're given is that there continues to be such enthusiasm from the various governments to retain the powers to make appointments that they are reluctant to turn it over to a completely depoliticized appointment process. That's the explanation I give as to why they don't bring in interested organizations such as the CCR to discuss what would make sense as a process.
A number of people have commented. François Crépeau and other academics from Montreal have spent a lot of time giving their thought to this and looking at various different possibilities, but there never seems to have been any serious study given to those suggestions.