Article content

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Bill Morneau was inundated with more than 10,000 missives last fall following the release of controversial tax-change proposals that infuriated the small-business community, says an internal federal document.

The memo, obtained by The Canadian Press, says the flood of messages addressed directly to the minister came in addition to more than 21,000 email submissions his department received as part of a related public consultation process.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Morneau flooded with more than 10,000 messages over controversial tax plan: memo Back to video

The Nov. 15 briefing note to the deputy finance minister also said the department had yet to process all the tax-related responses at that time — even though more than a month had passed since the end of the consultation period.

“The tax policy branch has been actively sorting through submissions in order to segregate those containing substantive policy comments for further analysis by those involved in policy development,” said the “secret” memo prepared for Paul Rochon and obtained through the Access to Information Act.