At the time, Parliament provided the government with the capacity to decide the proclamation dates of various parts of the statute. Large parts were put into effect, and the decision was made at the time.... As I understand it, there was already a huge backlog. There were already beginning to be problems with the system, and the view of the day was that the system did not require the RAD in order to be effective. As I think Ms. Mendes said, at the time there was a fair bit of discussion on whether there was a direct link between one or two commissioners on the one hand and the RAD on the other.
I wasn't there. I understand that there was a debate and that there were a variety of views on this issue. In the end, the main reason the government of the day, which I believe they publicly stated, would not put the RAD in operation immediately when they went from two to one was because a comprehensive analysis of the decision-making by the two-commissioner method was made, and there was only disagreement in 1% of the cases. A judgment was made that 1% of the cases did not merit the installation of this not insignificant appeal process.
As I mentioned a moment ago, subsequent to that we've been able to ascertain—I was saying this to Ms. Mendes—the acceptance rate did not drop when we went from two commissioners to one. I think the government of the day, and I believe the bureaucracy, was of the view that taking the system in its totality, people were getting fair and reasonable treatment and that a RAD was not necessary.