Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen for coming to the committee. We really appreciate your time and your expertise.
I just want to make a few remarks first to clarify some of the points before we move on. First of all, Mr. Bray mentioned there should be extra funding. Yes, in this bill there will be extra funding regarding two areas. First of all, there is the hiring of what they call IRB officers; they are government servants, but not necessarily from among the present government servants. Obviously you are not happy with the system right now because you are worried about the quality of the people. We were assured by the board chair the other day--and he is coming back again--that they will make sure that the people they hire will go beyond existing government servants, and there will be vigorous training to make sure they know the culture, to make sure they know the techniques in the first and second levels of hearing.
The director general of refugee affairs of the immigration department also came earlier in the afternoon and he gave us some clarification about the first interview, that it's data collecting. Also, some of your suggestions are already in their recommendations, saying that the interview will be recorded and also that there will be a written report, and both of them will be given to the applicant as well as to their counsel if they do have one.
In terms of funding, I mentioned earlier that, yes, there will be extra funding and hiring of people to do the processing at the beginning, otherwise there will be another backlog. Also, there will be money for deportation, because very often when we have false claimants, we cannot get them out and they end up staying.
My question is for all of you. Do you think the present system actually is preferable to the reforms?