Mr. Chair, I'm going to read what I got back from Immigration and Citizenship today.
I'm going to ask a question, if I can, to Mr. Komarnicki, because he's the parliamentary secretary.
This is in response to a question I put, and it comes from Betty Robinson, who works for Citizenship at St. Claire Avenue, in Toronto. It says:
Hello, Mr. Karygiannis
In answer to your question sent to Ann Lai about a procedure to deal with special cases of certain people living in Canada without status, an operational bulletin (OB) will be published within the next few days. As soon as it has been finalized, I will forward it to you.
The purpose of this OB will be to provide instructions for handling the special and unusual hardship cases of people who, for the most part, have lived or are living in Canada under the mistaken belief that they are Canadian citizens. All incoming applications at CPC Sydney will be screened to identify cases that should be facilitated, including cases that require urgent processing and cases that may potentially lead to a refusal. Identified cases will be forwarded to a special team with CPC Sydney who will evaluate them. Specific procedures are outlined in the OB to deal with the various types of cases that we expect to receive. When you have received and reviewed the OB, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
This is already out there. I know the minister is coming to make an announcement this afternoon. My question is this. Has there been a deal struck with the minister responsible for RCMP and CSIS to fast-track these things?
We're not playing politics here, Mr. Komarnicki. If you have something and you know something, spit it out and spit it out now. This is already out there. Let's not play with these people.
Your minister was at this committee and a question was asked on whether or not they advertised. She said yes. Then later on she turned around and wrote a letter to us apologizing that they hadn't done so. Who's playing politics? We're not, but you are.