Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but you have to remember that half of the panel would be made up of IRB staff, which would be the half that the chair was appointing. So this would leave all of the public positions in the minister's hands.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They could, but why does he need to?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  By the minister.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, sorry, because I think you're oversimplifying the situation. The fact is, I don't know what Prime Minister Martin and Judy Sgro intended.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But that's not what they did.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, and I'm saying that's a good thing.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're quite correct that the selection of board members has been a matter of importance for the CCR for quite a long time. We felt, from very personal experience for most of us, that there was an inconsistency in the quality of appointees to the refugee board. When the new sele

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was. In fact, up until the last year my reports back to my executive were very positive—that things were working, this was a good system, and we should support it. Over the last year my reports have been getting less and less positive, to the point where in November 2006 I got

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely not. I don't know the political background of my fellow committee members, and I don't think it's important that I do. I can tell you that in the many meetings we had over three years, not once did any member of our committee make a comment or bring forward a considera

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I want to comment on the fact that in Mr. Harrison's report there really isn't justification given for why the minister needs to have a say in naming people to the selection committee. It's put forward that this is the minister's prerogative, and this is what was intended in the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for the question. Before I answer, there is one thing I want to say. In my opening statement I indicated that we felt the fix was in when I talked about Mr. Harrison's report. I didn't mean to say that Mr. Harrison was in cahoots with anyone. I regretted it as soon as

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Nobody came out and said that to us directly. We heard rumours that this is what was being said about us. If indeed people were saying that, they obviously knew very little about those of us who were on the panel. We were all very committed to making this non-partisan and to pick