That's correct. There were substantial investments and reforms to the system in 2010. The new system was implemented in 2012. The key to those reforms was that the IRB would maintain a certain level of claim finalizations each year. Between 2012 and 2017 the IRB was unable to meet those targets, and a second backlog had emerged.
Then—and I think this is an important detail to understand—in 2017 the Trudeau government commissioned an independent review because of this continued inability of the IRB to stay on top of its backlog and meet its promised level of claim finalizations. The Trudeau government appointed former deputy minister Neil Yeates to lead an independent review of the asylum system.
Mr. Yeates was considering all options. His report was published. The two main options were to leave it as is or to do what he referred to as “major structural reform”, i.e. take the refugee protection division from the IRB and move it to IRCC so that it would be fixed in a reporting relationship to a minister, so that ministers and cabinet would have oversight and so that IRCC would just have better control over this problematic aspect of the system.
In 2017 the IRB was under immense pressure to quickly produce an increase in its rate of finalizations. It was by using this policy tool I've been describing that they were able to do that.