Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me here today. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to introduce myself to the committee and to provide you with information on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada—or IRB—Governor in Council selection process, our actions to implement the one recommendation that the Auditor General directed to the IRB and the government, and the current state of our member complement and workload.
I'm joined today by our senior general counsel, Sylvia Cox-Duquette.
I've been a member of the IRB for almost eight years now, and I've served on two of the board's three divisions, first as a member of the refugee protection division, hearing refugee claims, until 2006, and then as deputy chairperson of the immigration appeal division, before being appointed interim chairperson in March 2007 and chairperson in June of that year.
The current selection process for GIC members represents a significant change from the previous process. In addition to setting a pass/fail mark for the written exam, the Selection Advisory Board (SAB) merged the former Advisory Panel and the Chairpersons Selection Board.
All members of the SAB are required to affirm their impartiality in all aspects of the selection process.
Under the revised selection process, the IRB Chairperson is accountable to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism for the selection of qualified candidates according to nine behavioural competencies.
The IRB established these competencies for GIC members to ensure they have the necessary skills, abilities and personal suitability to fulfil their responsibilities.
Candidates who meet the written test and interview competencies undergo a detailed reference check and, on occasion, a behavioural event validation.
In my capacity as chair of the SAB, I recommend to the minister only those candidates who are qualified, based on these competencies, to be considered for appointment to the IRB. The selection process is transparent and merit-based.
The minister recommends the re-appointment of members to the governor in council after taking note of the IRB chairperson's recommendations based on rigorous end-of-mandate performance evaluations.
Since April 1, 2008, two-thirds of those members seeking re-appointment have in fact been re-appointed.
The Auditor General's report recognized that the IRB consistently followed established procedures to solicit and assess new candidates. It also found that new candidates were regularly recommended to the minister and that recommendations for re-appointments were consistently made six months in advance of the expiry date of the incumbents' terms.
Among the recommendations, the report called on the government and the IRB to work together to determine an appropriate complement of members or other strategy to deal with the inventory of unprocessed refugee claims and unresolved immigration appeals on a timely basis, taking into account the current size and the projected number of new cases. The IRB welcomes the recommendation of the Auditor General that the IRB be staffed in a timely manner with the required number of decision-makers who have the knowledge, skills, and experience to carry out the board's mandate. The IRB is pleased that the Auditor General recognized that the processes for soliciting, assessing, and recommending qualified candidates to the minister are sound and that my recommendations to the minister for appointment were based on the members' performance and made in a timely manner.
In response to the recommendation, I have recently shared with the government proposed options to address the IRB's workload challenges. I look forward to continuing to work with the minister and the government to arrive at a strategy that allows the IRB to address its pending inventory and increased intake.
One of the challenges the board continues to face in the pursuit of its mandate is the vacancies in the GIC member complement, along with the rate and timing of appointments and re-appointments at the board. The board is funded for a GIC member complement of 164. As of today, the IRB has a total of 137 members—107 in the RPD and 30 in the immigration appeal division. We currently have a shortfall of 27 members—20 in the RPD and 7 in the IAD. We also have 17 members whose terms are due to end in 2009-10. Of course, that doesn't take into account the possibility of members resigning prior to the end of their term for various reasons, including taking another job, which happens regularly.
However, since October 2008, I'm pleased to report that 33 new members have been appointed and 10 members have been reappointed. Understandably, our efforts have recently focused on training and mentoring the new members. It takes up to a year for a new member to become fully productive. Currently, 71% of our members are in the first term of their mandate, which is usually three years. That is an unusually large number. As the Auditor General pointed out in her report, we'd like to see a balance between the number of new members and the number of experienced members.
I would also like to stress that one external factor over which the IRB has no control, and which has a huge impact on our inventory, is the dramatic increase in the intake of refugee claims. Our intake is volatile and we have no control over the number of claims that are referred to us. In this past fiscal year, 2008-09, a total of 36,262 claims were referred to the IRB, compared with 30,564 in 2007-08 and 23,460 in 2006-07.
As a result of this increased intake, coupled with our member shortage, the current pending inventory has grown to 59,007—which is better than the 65,000 we had projected. The average processing time is now 17.6 months in the RPD and 11.9 months in the IAD. This is obviously very high: people are looking for a finality with respect to their applications and appeals, and their lives are on hold in the meantime, as are the lives of their families. From fiscal year 2006-07 to 2008-09, the intake has increased by 55% in the RPD, 9% in appeals to the IAD, and 21% in ID detention reviews and admissibility hearings.
I'd like to conclude by highlighting the fact that over the last year, in my view, the performance of the board has been extremely praiseworthy. Notwithstanding the external pressures of a mounting intake and a shortfall in member complement, we finalized 20,218 refugee claims in fiscal year 2008-09. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of our members and our support personnel, along with the positive impact of some of the case management efficiency measures we've adopted in a number of areas, finalizations per member have increased to the extent that we were able to achieve this notwithstanding a member vacancy rate that averaged over 27% over the fiscal year.
Finally, I'd like to mention that 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Thank you for your good wishes. Over the 20-year history, the board has finalized almost one million cases.
Thank you. I'd now be happy to answer any questions you may have.