Look, that may well be. The fact remains that we want to expedite the process and get the result, and the result means having a full complement of judges.
There are only nine judges. They have a tremendous workload. There are tremendously important cases, including a Senate reference that you're aware of, for which we want to have, and pardon this expression, but all of the horses in harness pulling and doing the work that we've asked of them. They're currently short-handed. The reason that we put this declaratory provision in the BIA was to do it as quickly as possible. As you know, our legislation is denoted with numbers. This is Bill C-4, meaning this was the fourth bill brought before Parliament in this session. It was the earliest opportunity that we could bring this matter before the House of Commons, and ultimately the Senate.
That was the path we chose. Could it have been done in a stand-alone way? Yes. It probably would have taken longer. This was a way to expedite this process, ultimately get what we think is a very straightforward decision, a similar decision from the court. Then this Supreme Court justice, this very eminently qualified individual, will take his place on the bench and they can get on with their very important work with all of the judges in place.