Thank you, Chair.
You had raised, Mr. Rigby, the issue of the national case management system and the global case management system. I'd like to visit that a little more closely.
The GCMS was supposed to replace the NCMS in 2005, and you held off doing a lot of things, believing that the system was going to come in. And then it didn't happen, and now you're in some ways starting over.
On April 22, 2006, The Toronto Star ran an article that reads as follows, under the headline “Computer Revamp Costs Soar. Program Goes Up 25% and Lags Far Behind Schedule. Immigration and Border Officials Scrambling”.
The article says, in part:
A $48 million increase in the cost of a federal computer project is raising the spectre of another financial fiasco sadly reminiscent of the infamous gun registry. Bureaucrats in the three departments are whispering about the political cash and career implications of a massive program that has risen 25% to almost $243 million, won't deliver all that was originally promised and lags far behind schedule. Not surprisingly, immigration and border officials are losing confidence in the Global Case Management System while their superiors are struggling to contain what is even by Ottawa standards a mess.
In April 2007 the government cancels the program, or at least cancels it in terms of your participation in it. It's obviously wasted money, wasted time, wasted staff effort, wasted work, and continuing risk for a longer period of time than was necessary.
Please tell me why this failed, why the decision was made to not go with the GCMS and to return to the NCMS, how much more it is going to cost, how much money you have spent so far, and how long it is going to take until you get up to where you should have been had the government gone ahead with the original plan of 2005.