Senator Plett: Hopefully, the minister can give you the correct information.

Our passport system, leader, is in utter chaos. No one in the Trudeau government knows how to fix it, and each day it seems to get worse. I hate to think what will happen next week when most schools close for the summer and more families start travelling. As I said yesterday, over 18,000 Service Canada employees who process passports still work from home as a pandemic precaution.

The insistence of this Trudeau government to prolong the pandemic as long as possible while the rest of Canada, and indeed the rest of the world, has moved on means the government can’t keep pace with its citizens.

Fewer than 48,000 passports were issued last week, leader. The average before the pandemic was more than 90,000 passports per week — almost double.

Leader, a written answer tabled in the House of Commons states that as of May 12, 2022, 249 Service Canada employees were on leave in relation to the vaccine requirement.

How many of these workers process passports, Senator Gold, and are they now back at their jobs?