A Canadian flag flies in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in March 2017 in a file photo. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)
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COVID-19, pandemic relief, and China’s human rights issues are among the top ten issues that Canadians have contacted the prime minister about since Jan. 1, 2020, a document submitted to the House of Commons shows.
The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Epoch Times, was issued by the government in response to an inquiry by Conservative MP Marty Morantz. The inquiry was made on Nov. 24, 2022, and a response from the government came back on Jan. 30, 2023.
The top 10 issues vary based on classifications of correspondence, which are based on two parameters: types and formats. There are two types of correspondence, which are “regular” and “campaign.” As for formats, there are “paper/fax” and “email.”
COVID-19, specifically the government’s approach to the pandemic, topped the list for regular correspondence, for both email and paper forms. Together, the government was contacted nearly 155,000 times over this issue.
Similar issues of “COVID-19 vaccine” and federal relief measures for COVID-19 collectively accounted for over 30,000 pieces of regular correspondence by email.
For the campaign type of correspondence, “Governor General” topped the list for contacts by paper, with 172,900 pieces of correspondence, and “seal hunt” was the number one item of contacts by email, with 359,043 pieces.
Notably, communist China’s persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong also made it on the list of paper form campaign correspondence. The practice, also known as Falun Dafa, is rooted in Buddhist traditions, and includes meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the tenets of “truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.” Adherents of Falun Gong have been targeted for torture, sexual abuse, and live organ harvesting in an ongoing persecution launched by the Chinese Communist Party since July 20, 1999.
The prime minister has received over 14,000 pieces of correspondence regarding the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, the document shows.
Canadians are also concerned about issues ranging from the protection of species at risk (279,367 pieces of correspondence) to the government’s approach to climate change (208,266), to “peace in Palestine and Israel” (189,975).
The issue of coronavirus, specifically “Government’s Approach” and “Federal Relief Measures” also account for over 92,000 and 91,000 pieces of email campaign correspondence.