Finance committee  That's generally the process. I must apologize, I'm not an expert on the IRB. I thought we were discussing Bill C-50.

Finance committee  Sorry. I am looking at some numbers in terms of the backlog inventory. What I can say—and I don't know what the precise situation was in terms of IRB complement at various points in time—is that the numbers have gone from 41,000 in 2003, down to 27,000 in 2004, and then up a bit, so there seems to be an ebb and flow.

Finance committee  Exactly. What I can't say is whether or not there were commensurate decreases in terms of the IRB complement at that time.

Finance committee  I guess I can only comment as an official on the facts that are before us, and the facts are that we have a backlog at the moment of 925,000 people—a reality that is greatly constricting our ability to do our work.

Finance committee  The large component of that constitutes the federal skilled worker program. What the government is pursuing is a strategy for resolving or helping to tackle that backlog, the existence of which impedes our ability to deal with the immigration system as a whole, because it is one system that deals with all the different categories.

Finance committee  Do you mean the issue of identifying particular priorities?

Finance committee  It's certainly not new in terms of other jurisdictions. In fact, Canada I think is one of the only major immigrant-receiving countries that currently lacks the ability to go through some sort of occupational filter to ensure we are matching skills with needs in the domestic market.

Finance committee  No, that's only on the permanent residency side. It doesn't apply on the temporary side.

Finance committee  It applies just for permanent residents.

Finance committee  We haven't quite sorted out precisely how we're going to proceed on the consultation process. We have talked to them about the foreign credential recognition issue. We have said that this process is going to need to proceed hand-in-glove. The minister referred to this in her remarks last week in Calgary as well.

Finance committee  Thanks for the question. I think those are two areas where there has been a lot of discussion in particular. I'll start with the charter issue in the first instance. The charter does apply to everything we do as officials. The charter binds Government of Canada officials in the execution of all government policy, be it in Canada or abroad.

Finance committee  I think as we sit here the backlog is around 41,000.

Finance committee  I have to apologize. I don't have the specific number here. I think it is under 60.

Finance committee  We'd have to confirm that number.

Finance committee  That's right.