I would identify a number of important points here.
One of the things the government did in terms of investing money in their recent budget was to give us a two-year time frame in which to take a look at what's happening in our system.
I mentioned earlier, in my opening remarks and I think in responding to one of the earlier questions, that when we look at what's happening around the world with respect to migration and what we see coming into our country, we have an opportunity to kind of do a deep dive in terms of what that analysis tells us.
One thing that has really assisted us is our ASMB, as we've identified, so that we're all talking the same language in identifying the pressures we see for each other. That allows us to identify where we can find and address efficiencies and where we can reduce duplication, as well as identify the kinds of initiatives we can put in place to help us develop more robustness in the system.
That will help us over the next two years to work with the Treasury Board around finding the right funding model that has more finesse to it. We don't know if the number will stay at 50,000. We don't know if it will go to 45,000 and we don't know if it will go to 55,000. Therefore, having these two years to get some good intel, to take a look at what's happening with trends, to develop our own efficiencies, to reduce duplication and to get the technology on board will feed into what the number will really mean.
These are best guesses in terms of numbers, based on some history, but looking at these trends, I think, will help us get to that place in a better way.
I will give an example. Irregular migration has been consistently high over the past two years, but what we see right now, between January 1 and May, is a 46% decrease. When you see a big swing down like that, it impacts what happens to Richard at the IRB in terms of how many cases he has to look at. As removals move forward as a result of the work John does in his area, those removals impact what's happening at the end of the system.
What we're collectively doing together is like a puzzle. We're taking all those pieces and trying to get our best information to determine what numbers we will have, and at the same time we're learning from those processes. We're becoming more effective and efficient. We're looking at the pilot we're doing in Toronto, as an example, beginning in September, which will in and of itself increase efficiencies much more quickly.
I don't know that the number will be 50,000 or 70,000, but what we will know is that we're collectively working together and that each of these pieces will help us get to the end state in terms of what those numbers look like. All that work will help us make decisions at the end.