Well, you'd know this from your previous justice days. I would say that the reality is that you may schedule a hearing for two hours, but for natural justice reasons, the hearing runs out of time before it can conclude, so there's a continuation. The member says our two-hour time slot is up, and we need to reschedule the hearing.
The way the IRB had been managing its schedule is that we schedule three to four months out. We block a schedule three to four months out. You could say a number like 50%, 60% or 30% of hearings are postponed, so why don't we keep 30% of our schedule vacant on account of potential postponements? We would be criticized for that if we had a schedule for the next three or four months that was 30% vacant.
We are always challenged with the reality that when intake exceeds funded processing capacity, as was the case during the audit—less so now—we run into these operational challenges. What the Auditor General reported was that new cases were coming in, and they were bumping cases that had already been postponed.
We are working with the management team to deal with this issue, and I can tell you that I've sat in on a number of hearings. What actually happens is that when they run out of time, the member calls registry and asks for another time slot over the next couple of weeks. They work with claimants' counsels and they find a time to reschedule the hearing much more quickly.
I can tell you why. Members have already prepared for the cases. It's in their interest. They're seized with it, and they've already begun to develop their theory of the case. Evidence has been adduced. They want to finish the case as soon as possible.
We will be working over the summer months on developing a protocol to identify how best to fit postponements into an already booked schedule. Overtime, overbooking and other operational strategies are being looked at.