Mr. Speaker, insofar as Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CIC, is concerned, in response to (a), in preparing this response, CIC is only considering requests for meetings made from outside the federal government.
Similarly, requests to meet the minister by applicants who write to CIC about their cases have not been included in this number as the department does not track these requests and identifying them is not feasible in the timeframe provided for this response.
Requests to meet with the Minister are received through a number of sources, including but not limited to: departmental correspondence, the minister’s official departmental email, and the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, www.cic.gc.ca. Citizenship and Immigration Canada keeps records of meeting requests if they are received directly via mail or through the minister’s official departmental email. Meetings requests received via other channels are sometimes noted in other departmental records. CIC was able to identify a total of 182 outside requests to meet the minister from January 1, 2008, to December 10, 2010, based on the departmental records listed above.
CIC is unable to provide the requested information about these meetings as it is not possible within the timeframe provided for the response for the department to exercise the due diligence that is required to divulge this information in view of a number of considerations, including complying with the Privacy Act.
In response to (b), information about meetings the minister, government representatives or ministerial staff may have attended as a result of the requests identified in section (a) is not under the control of the department.
Information about meetings that may have been attended by departmental officials as a result of the requests identified in section (a) cannot be identified in the timeframe provided for this response.
It should be noted that lobbyists must file a monthly communication report with the Registry of Lobbyists for each oral and arranged communication they have with a designated public office holder, such as a minister. For more information, please consult the Web site of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada: http://www.ocl-cal.gc.ca.