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It happens every fall.

Also, mid-January and not infrequently, right after the two-week Easter recess – in fact, virtually any time the House of Commons re-opens for business after an extended hiatus: the government tables hundreds of pages of documents in response to written questions filed by MPs, and journalists and opposition research staff alike go briefly but spectacularly bonkers, frantically flipping through those replies in hopes of being the first to unearth a noteworthy nugget.

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The deadline for replying is 45 calendar days, which can result in a significant backlog of past-due responses after a prolonged adjournment.

Depending on the length of a particular response, it may be printed in Hansard as if read aloud in the House, or added to the parliamentary archives, thus obliging those wishing to peruse the details to request a copy from either the MP who submitted the original question or the tireless staff at the Library of Parliament.