We are recommending very strongly that the department track this closely. Early indications are that they will not be able to meet the six- to 12-month time for processing that they established for themselves, so they need to have a better sense of what the inputs are.
In addition, I think they need to be clearer about what they mean by “backlog”. We just learned that they count the backlog from the time someone is accepted as being eligible, but there can be a long time before an application is opened and assessed for eligibility. The average Canadian would expect backlogs to be counted from the time you submit an application, not from the time you're deemed eligible. This might be something the committee would want to explore with the department. But in any case, we want to recommend that the department track this carefully, because the measures that were put in place may not have the intended effects.