Canadians writing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have a 5% chance of getting a reply, records show. The Privy Council Office explained the Prime Minister gets a lot of junk mail..Asked, “How many pieces of correspondence, both mail and email, have you received?” staff in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons said Trudeau received 2,888,517 letters and emails last year. A total 2,732,013 went unanswered, 95%..“The volume of correspondence primarily includes junk emails, newsletters and spam emails,” wrote staff. “These items do not typically receive a reply.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, the prime minister earlier boasted he was a good listener. “I believe that real leadership is about listening, learning and compassion,” Trudeau told reporters in 2019. “It’s about transparency and accountability.”.“Almost every day as prime minister I learn new things,” said Trudeau, adding: “There is always room for improvement, obviously.”.Trudeau’s correspondence peaked at 3,085,412 letters and emails in 2020. A total 93% went unanswered that year..The figures were requested by Conservative MP Len Webber (Calgary Confederation). When asked how long it took the prime minister’s Office to answer a letter from a Member of Parliament, staff did not reply..One cabinet member, Attorney General David Lametti, disclosed his department took four months to answer an inquiry from an MP. The Department of Justice in 2020 received 11,083 letters and emails. The average response times were 77 business days or four months for MPs and 122 business days or six months for the general public..The Department of Agriculture said it took about three months to answer MPs’ letters. The Department of National Defence boasted it answered most mail within one month..The Department of Environment said it averaged as many as 5,000 letters a year with fifty times as many emails. The volume of email peaked at 838,000 under then-Minister Catherine McKenna in 2020 and had since declined to fewer than 284,000..Records show correspondence to cabinet is monopolized by petitioners. In the period from 2015 to 2018 opponents of the Atlantic seal hunt accounted for more than two million letters and emails to the Prime Minister’s Office, according to a 2018 Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons..Other petitioners wrote the Prime Minister about climate change (240,000 letters and emails), animal testing (227,000), British Columbia’s Site C Dam (148,000) and general opposition to pipelines (141,000)..Other correspondents cited China’s human rights abuses (138,000), natural gas developments (128,000), the $10.5 million payment to Omar Khadr (127,000), terrorism (86,000) and renewable energy (66,000).
