Thank you. That in fact is what I found out on March 9 from the Library of Parliament.
The citizenship and immigration department wrote a response and said there were a total of 14 working staff in the visa section at the beginning of 2005 and 2006. In the summer of 2006, one Canada-based visa officer position and two locally engaged staff positions were redeployed to other missions, leaving a total of 11 staff.
My question is to Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Richter.
Your department has stated that in fact there was a staffing cut. It was approximately 30% of the staff that was cut. Did the minister not know, when he put out this press release claiming that I was misleading when I was talking about these staffing cuts, or was in fact the minister misleading? Was the minister not informed, after being asked this question in the House, and a few days later he put out a press release in which he stated there were no cuts? Was he causing confusion, or did he just not know? Was he not being informed by his own department?