Thank you, Chair.
Obviously, the department put in these ministerial instructions to try to limit the numbers of categories and so reduce the number of applications to be able to process them more quickly. The initial indications we saw were that there was not as significant a reduction in the number of applications as might have been expected, so there was a possibility that.... We talk about the backlog being pre-ministerial, but there is a possibility there will be a second backlog, because when you start with a new system, you can process the first application in a week. If we're already at seven months--and it would seem from the deputy's statement that a backlog is starting in the new system as well--the committee might want to ask how many applications have been received and how many have been processed and what the backlog is in the new system. I think that is what we were trying to get at; we didn't have a lot of time to show that, but that was our worry.