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?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, the Halifax Examiner just published an article entitled, “RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki tried to ’jeopardize’ mass murder investigation to advance Trudeau’s gun control efforts.”

In the article, we learn that Brenda Lucki made a promise to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and the Prime Minister’s Office to leverage the mass murders of April 18 and 19, 2020, in Nova Scotia to get gun-control law passed.

Here is a quote, Senator Gold, from the notes of one of the RCMP officers who participated in the meetings with the commissioner:

The Commissioner said she had promised the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister’s Office that the RCMP (we) would release this information. . . .

Senator Gold, is this true? Did the RCMP commissioner promise to use the mass murders in Nova Scotia to advance Liberal government policies?