SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Brad Redekopp

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Saskatoon West
  • Saskatchewan
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,909.92

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 217 - Jun/20/23
Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC)
  • Jun/20/23 12:48:33 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to comment on the question of privilege raised by the member for Calgary Nose Hill on June 15 and again on June 19, as well as the subsequent interventions by my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola on June 19 and the one we just heard from the member for Lakeland. On June 9, the answers to four Order Paper questions that I had previously submitted were tabled in this House: Question No. 1435, which was about a further breakdown of application processing times; Question No. 1436, which was about IRCC spending on settlement services; Question No. 1437, which was on other departments' spending on settlement services; and Question No. 1438, which was for the temporary resident to permanent resident program, with specific questions about the Whitehorse office. For everyone's information, I am going to review these in reverse order. In my opinion, Questions Nos. 1438 and 1437 were answered thoughtfully and thoroughly by the government. Questions Nos. 1436 and 1435 were not, which is why they are relevant to this question of privilege. Question No. 1436 came back with the following answer: ...Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, IRCC, undertook an extensive preliminary search in order to determine the amount of information that would fall within the scope of the question and the amount of time that would be required to prepare a comprehensive response. IRCC concluded that producing and validating a comprehensive response to this question would require a manual collection of information that is not possible in the time allotted and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information. Question No. 1435, answered by the same department, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and signed by the parliamentary secretary, suggested that I look up a website, as they did not want to actually provide the information in written form. Madam Speaker, I believe if you examine Questions Nos. 1437 and 1436, you will see that IRCC deliberately set out to avoid answering the questions. That is why they are relevant to this question of privilege. We should remember that I said that Question No. 1437 was answered thoughtfully and thoroughly by the government. The wording of Question No. 1436 is exactly the same as that in Question No. 1437, with the exception that Question No. 1436 applies to only one government department, IRCC, and Question No. 1437 applies to every other department within the Government of Canada. There are instructions in Question No. 1437 to every government department on how to answer the question, and to the credit of every department, with the exception of IRCC, they all answered the question. If every government department can run the same searches, collate the information, put it in a spreadsheet and answer Question No. 1437, then why can IRCC not answer the same question in Question No. 1436? Question No. 1436 already asks for information that the government breaks down in its estimates and the public accounts generally, but not to the degree that I was looking for. I asked the question on the assumption that if IRCC tracks this information for reporting to Parliament in the estimates and public accounts, then it should not have an issue breaking this information down further, especially as we are in the main estimates cycle. Madam Speaker, I believe that once you take a look at these two questions and answers side by side, you will see a clear case of obfuscation on behalf of IRCC to answer Question No. 1436. Therefore, Order Paper Question No. 1436 must be looked at as part of my colleague's question of privilege. I will quickly touch upon Order Paper Question No. 1435 and the answer that came back from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I believe you must also take that into consideration during your deliberations on my colleague’s question of privilege. As you are more than capable of reading the answer for yourself, Madam Speaker, I will quote part of the answer: ...IRCC undertook an extensive preliminary search to determine the amount of information that would fall within the scope of the request to provide details of the tables provided in annex A in response to Order Paper question Q-1146 broken down by category and country of origin. The data elements identified for this response would be too large to provide and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information. However, application processing times for selected categories are available by country at the IRCC Check Processing Times – Canada.ca website. You will note from this answer and my original question, Madam Speaker, that I was asking for further information from a previous Order Paper question that I had asked, Question No. 1146. If you were to look at the answer tabled for Question No. 1146 on March 20, 2023, you would see that IRCC made a concerted effort to actually answer this question in a thoughtful manner. Indeed, it was the thoroughness of this answer that prompted me to ask Question No. 1435, which simply read, “With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the government's response to Order Paper question Q-1146: what are the details of the tables provided in Annex A, broken down by category and country of origin?” It is a department whose job it is to track people by country of origin and immigration stream; I simply asked the department to provide that information, based upon a search it had previously conducted for Question No. 1146. Indeed, according to IRCC's departmental plan 2022-2023, which has been tabled in the House and forms part of the estimates, the department has three core responsibilities, including no. 2: immigrant and refugee selection and integration. This question goes to the very heart of the department's core responsibilities. Therefore, the department officials' deliberate decision to, in Questions Nos. 1435 and 1436, withhold information that they had access to is relevant to the question of privilege raised by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill. On June 22, we are coming to the end of the supply cycle, and, as members of Parliament, we will be asked to vote on tens of billions of dollars of money for the government to run various government departments. Written questions are one way that we, as MPs, are able to get information from the government in order to make informed decisions when we vote upon those estimates. I framed my Order Paper questions with the understanding that a) this information was available and within the scope of what Parliament was entitled to while examining the estimates; b) that the government would not intentionally block a member of Parliament from doing their job; and c) that there was still a modicum of respect left in the House of Commons, from the government to opposition MPs, to allow us to do our job and to hold the government to account. With the extra information I have provided, and with all due respect to you, Madam Speaker, I urge you to look at the pattern of disrespect that the government has shown to the opposition throughout the Order Paper question process and to rule in favour of my colleague's question of privilege.
1212 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border