Okay, great.
In a letter to this committee, your department stated that there are “approximately 29,000 pending disability benefit applications (First Applications, Reassessment and Departmental Reviews). Of the 29,000 pending in the queue, approximately 9000 applications (First applications, Reassessments and Departmental Reviews) are over the service standard.”
Your government has now committed $42.8 million over two years to address the backlog in processing the increased number of claims. Was this dollar amount, $42.8 million over the two years, the amount that was officially requested by experts in the department to resolve the backlog?