Chair, almost a month ago I wrote you a letter in regard to what transpired when the minister was last here in committee, on March 16.
I would like to read that letter for everybody here, as follows:
Dear Chair: At the meeting of the Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration on March 16, 2010, I asked the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration a question with respect to updating the department web page, “Statistical information: Applications processed at Canadian visa offices, Skilled Worker applications received after February 26, 2008 (Federal)”. The Minister gave the Committee the following answer: The information that you were requesting in terms of wait time under the ministerial instructions of the action plan for fast immigration were put on the web as a result of the announcement I just made, Mr. Karygiannis. If you have a BlackBerry, you can go to cic.gc.ca and you can download the information. I pointed out to the Minister that I had gone to the website and downloaded a “hard copy” of the web page and that the information was not there. The Minister replied: It's in the information we just released as part of our first quarterly reports. It will be regularly updated every quarter. I subsequently asked the Minister the following: Minister, I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase, to make sure what you're saying.... Unfortunately, my question came in the last round and I was unable to further ask the Minister to correct his misleading information. I have since gone to the web page in question “Statistical information: Applications processed at Canadian visa offices, Skilled Worker applications received after February 26, 2008 (Federal)” and downloaded the page a copy of which is attached to this letter. It remains unchanged. I have also written to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration asking him to return to Committee to clarify his answers. A copy of this letter is also attached. I am asking you to call the Minister to appear before Committee...to correct this misleading information.
Chair, I'm bringing this to your attention. The minister either did not have the correct information or.... I wouldn't say that the minister wanted to intentionally mislead this committee, but I'm asking you, sir, to call the minister to explain. I feel that I have a point of privilege. I was not given the correct information.
As such, I'm asking you, sir, as the chair of the committee, to rule on that point of privilege that I'm bringing forward to you.