It’s a perfect example of why many Canadians have little faith in the federal government’s ability to keep them safe.

It started with an order paper question by Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner.

She asked the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney in September how often Canadian citizenship is granted or denied to those with criminal records.

The response was that the government has no idea in an answer that was a word salad of non-information.

To wit:

“Due to data limitations, the department is unable to report on the number of applications for which an applicant has a criminal record that (was) received, approved, denied, received but … still awaiting a decision, nor is the department able to provide a breakdown by type of crime which the department determined was severe enough to deny citizenship, and not severe enough to deny citizenship.”

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That was the response from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada tabled in the House of Commons last week.

The number appears to be in the thousands given that between January 2019 and this past August, 2,530 applications were rejected under Section 22 of the Citizenship Act.

It gives the IRCC the authority to reject applications from those seeking Canadian citizenship for reasons of criminality, but also  because of withholding documents, being untruthful to authorities, or while being investigated or charged with war crimes under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

“It blows my mind that the government cannot tell us how many criminals they’ve given citizenship to,” Rempel Garner told Postmedia’s Bryan Passifiume.

In answer to an order paper question from Conservative MP Blaine Calkins, the data showed that while the number of Canadians held in federal penitentiaries is going down, the number of non-Canadians has increased by 30% – from 655 a decade ago to 857 in 2024/25.

Last year, a government response to an order paper question by Conservative MP Laila Goodridge revealed the Canada Border Services Agency had lost track of almost 30,000 people wanted by immigration authorities after they failed to appear for deportation proceedings, including those with immigration warrants issued against them.

All of which suggests the federal government is failing in one of its primary responsibilities with regard to immigration – keeping Canadians safe.