Thank you, Madam Chair.
I, too, would like to thank the witnesses for being here today to participate in this extremely important study. I also want to thank them for their patience, given the unexpected interruption. I'm glad everyone waited.
I'd like to talk more about specifics.
Congratulations to you, Mr. Ballard, on the work your organization does, and please congratulate your 12 volunteers for me.
What I've noticed is that when an international crisis occurs—such as the situation in Afghanistan, the situation in Ukraine or the earthquake in Haiti—the backlog grows because some of IRCC's work is done by officers on the ground. Is that something your organization has noticed?
We shouldn't stick our heads in the sand: international crises are going to occur more and more often. Should the department create a permanent mechanism to deal with emergency cases in preparation for those situations, instead of deploying officers every time?