Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's actually something we have never contemplated. We make all of our projections based on the law as it is. We are a tribunal, so we make no policy assumptions. We just apply the law as it is, and that's how we make all of our projections.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It depends. There may be other factors that come into play. I can't speak to fictitious scenarios.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The order in council appointments are for our appellate members, so they don't really impact our first-level response, which is essentially the decisions that are made about whether somebody is a refugee or not.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Right now our vacancy I think is 23. Do we have 23 vacancies right now?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We could, absolutely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Your question is on how many the response team has dealt with to date.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have about 300 finalizations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We expect to do 1,500 through the response team by the end of November.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The acceptance rate is in the mid-to-high 50% range.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't have that information. Our responsibility is only for the decision and whether somebody meets the convention status.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Can you just clarify for me, since what time? What is the date we're talking about? I actually don't know a time when we were adding 8,000 per month—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For those who are not familiar with what we refer to as “legacy” cases, those are cases that are backlogged from before the time of the reform of the legislation, before 2012. There were originally close to 40,000 of those cases, but a little over 5,000 remain to be adjudicated.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You mean, in terms of legislation, are we still within the legislation?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we are. We are within the legislation because the legislation does have timelines—30 days, 45 days, and 60 days—but it also allows for a fourth category of exception, which is for operational need. We currently have over 40,000 cases in backlog, and essentially, the aver

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it's safe to say it will increase. It's a mathematical calculation: the number of cases, the number of members and hearing rooms available to hear those cases, and the length of time it takes. We have put efficiencies in place to ensure that we are effective in doing tr