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That is, if the government is willing to come back to the House with a real reply within the allotted 45 days, which isn’t always a given.

The previous administration, for instance, became progressively less willing to indulge the curiosity of the then-opposition Liberals and New Democrats, often claiming that whatever information was sought was simply impossible to gather within the prescribed timeline, or simply wasn’t collected at all.

During their time in power, the Conservatives would also regularly cite privacy concerns as a reason for refusing a request, despite the fact that technically, such protections don’t apply to Parliament – an excuse that has also been trotted out by the current administration, although not yet with quite such frequency.

(It would be interesting to see how the last government would have responded to a similar request for relocation costs, but no opposition member thought to ask.)

In any case, unlike an access to information request, there’s no recourse or appeal process for an MP left unsatisfied by a particular reply; past speakers have repeatedly found that, while the government is obliged to respond, there is no requirement that it actually answer the question.

Conservative backbenchers used to also periodically file requests for the estimated cost of replying to all written questions over a certain period of time, which would invariably be reported back to the House as running well into the tens of thousands – and occasionally low millions – of dollars, the clear implication being that opposition members were wasting taxpayer money on partisan fishing expeditions.