Mr. Chair, I've moved quickly on appointments in general. I should point out that it's not exclusively in my power; I can recommend them to the cabinet. However, there is a process that we've adopted as well for pre-screening of applicants for appointment to the citizenship commission. That takes time. When I came into this ministry, my recollection was that we had a shortage of qualified, pre-screened candidates ready for appointment in British Columbia. I have no reason to maintain vacancies if we have qualified candidates to appoint.
I talked about this issue with Chief Judge Springate of the commission when I became minister. He assured me that the commission had contingency operations in place, including bringing in itinerant judges from other parts of the country to do services. I regret that Judge Gibault had to carry so much burden for so long in B.C. because we didn't have an inventory of pre-screened candidates. But we've moved quickly to fill up the appointments, with the exception of one part-time position.