Mr. Speaker, with respect to the preamble to the question as well as the preambles to parts (c) and (d), the government has responded to all questions placed on the order paper during the 41st Parliament with the exception of questions on the order paper when the House adjourned in December 2013, questions withdrawn by the member who asked the question, and questions on the order paper at the time of the prorogation of the first session.
If a member designates a question as a priority question, the government’s time period to produce a response is limited to 45 days. Except as noted earlier, the government has provided a response on or before this 45-day deadline to every such priority question.
With respect to parts (a) and (b), the government has not refused to answer any questions on the order paper. A response has been provided to each question, subject to the limited exceptions noted earlier.
Extensive manual searches, tabulations, and organization of information, which would divert a number of public servants away from their primary responsibilities, are sometimes required for preparing a comprehensive response to a question. If this is required, it may be determined that preparing a comprehensive response to a question, or some part of it, is not feasible. Such a determination is made in view of the resources then available, rather than applying an arbitrary threshold of time estimated for, or cost associated with, preparing a comprehensive response.
Ministers remain responsible for the content of responses that they sign or that their Ministers of State or parliamentary secretaries sign on their behalf.
With respect to parts (c) and (d), and despite the earlier response with respect to the preambles to those parts, from the opening of the 41st Parliament until December 10, 2013, Members of the House of Commons have posed some 1,662 written questions, including many questions which each contain dozens of parts or sub-questions. An extensive manual review of each response provided by the Government, together with the processes associated with preparing each response, would be required to provide a comprehensive response in the present case; such reviews are not feasible given the 45-day limit placed on responding to this question.