Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague, the hon. member for Vaughan, for his thoughtful and constructive remarks. I have a couple of comments more than questions.
First, his suggestion that the current problems in the system are the result of a lack of appointments too the IRB by this government, I would like to respond to that. In point of fact there has been a permanent backlog in the system. On average, the backlog has been 40,000 cases.
When our government took office, we inherited, from our predecessors, a backlog of some 20,000 asylum cases pending decisions at the RPD. In the subsequent three years, there was a huge growth in the number of claims. In fact, the IRB, when fully staffed and fully funded as it is, can finalize about 25,000 protection decisions a year. Between 2006 and 2009, the number of claims exceeded the maximum processing capability of the IRB by about 20,000 cases.
Therefore, we inherited a backlog of 20,000. About 20,000 cases in the current backlog are as a result of an excess of claims over the fully funded capacity of the IRB to render decisions.
It is true, however, that a percentage, about one-third of the current backlog, could be attributed to a temporary shortfall in appointments, which was not arbitrary. It was the result of our government accepting a more rigorous pre-screening process.
I would like to commend the member for York West, former minister of citizenship and immigration, for her positive improvements to the pre-screening process for IRB members. I think we enhanced those.
In fact now, only 10% of the people who apply for membership to the IRB are actually referred to the minister for consideration. Since I became minister, some 16 months ago, I have recommended, and cabinet has accepted, the appointment of 65 new members, 34 reappointments, for 99 appointments to the IRB, and the refugee protection division is now at 99%, 126 of 127 members. Therefore, we did everything we could. The basic architecture of the system needs to change.
I have one other comment. On the issue of public service decision-makers at the refugee protection division, what we have proposed is exactly the same thing that exists on the other side of the IRB, the immigration division, which is what the Liberal government adopted as a structure for decision-making when it brought in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002. Essentially we are following the template of our predecessors in that respect.