Thank you, Minister, and welcome back to the committee. I appreciated your presentation this morning.
I have a couple of questions. The first issue I want to raise is one I have raised before in the House of Commons, and that is judges. Our courts face a serious backlog. That's not new, but I think there would be agreement that it is has worsened as a result of the large number of judicial vacancies. At this time it looks as if there are at least 46 vacancies across Canada, and yet not one judge has been appointed.
Yesterday in response to a question that I asked you in the House of Commons, you referred to short-term procedures that were in place to deal with this. I was wondering what those short-term procedures are.