Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We've done a variety of things to make use of the funds that have been made available to us. We've significantly increased the number of temporary duty officers. We often hire people who are retired, and we send them to the various posts that need to have their backlogs worked on. We've created a number of term positions in London and Singapore, where they have very large backlogs. We've also done two things that Mr. Kenney's predecessor talked about.
One thing is that we've coded all the files that are in the backlog. We're in the process of doing that, and if they have not expressed a preference for a particular province, we'll be referring those to the provinces in the event they're interested in making use of those files. That would lower the backlog.
As well, we're trying an experiment in writing to something like 60,000 of the older file holders to ask them if they're still interested, because unless they consciously and expressly withdraw, they have to stay in the backlog.
So it's been a combination of things like the coding and the letter writing, but also the assignment of additional officers throughout our system and the movement of officers between busy and less busy places, as the minister has indicated.