Citizenship and Immigration committee  At my last count, when I left the board, in Toronto alone I think we were at about 34% vacancy. Because Toronto is 60%.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When I left the board, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but you have to be careful to weigh the fact that the number of appeals has also increased. So there's the question of your vacancies, but it's that your workload referral is higher. Our appeals were increasing in the last three or—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's one part. But don't forget, we have another, third tribunal that is staffed, as decision-makers, by public servants. They have deadlines with respect to looking at whether people are going to be released or not. So what you describe is partly true in the terms you described, but in the tribunal where public servants do the decision-making and we're fully staffed, there are no delays.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's the government that decides on appointments. It goes to cabinet on the recommendation of the minister and the Prime Minister.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Were there any roadblocks?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, can I—?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, you could. A test can be a screening device or one tool to evaluate candidates.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but I do not want to mislead anyone here. Regardless of the fact that we did border cases on the marking of tests, at least one-third were completely screened out as a result of their test marks being so low.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was not a flaw. We were using our judgment on the total person in front of us. But as for whether you can use a passing mark, for sure, I think a lot of institutions do that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In the scientific field or in accounting, or whatever you need, where you can measure. But the difficulty with the tests with which we're evaluating judgment is that this is a very hard tool, and it's very difficult to develop a foolproof test with respect to judgment.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It varies. I would like to say to you that if you take some of his statistics, it looks like that. But I chaired most of those, and I've seen series of interviews we conducted, in Toronto or anywhere else, where with the selection board we did not qualify 50%. So be careful with that statistic.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't question his sample at all.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My response is that if the government wants to do it that way, it's their prerogative, and I say they could do it, for sure.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. There are two things you have to consider. The government—and rightly so—wanted more candidates, more choices. At the rate we were going, if the test were to stop a lot of people, then the question was whether we ran another competition. You have to look at each case on its own merit.