David Hickey: Immigration Department and Media Requests

david hickey: The email trail reveals federal staffers grappling with the painfully slow wheels of bureaucratic red tape as they try to respond to a torrent of media requests, all the while fussing with the minutiae of wording government statements that did little to address the most burning questions, according to CTV. The Canadian Press requested all emails dealing with the subject Syrian refugees that were received and obtained by David Hickey, then-director general of communications for the federal Immigration Department, for the three days following the death of Alan Kurdi. New documents obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act provide a revealing look at the often-frantic flurry of internal government communications that erupted in the days after a heart-rending photo of the toddler's corpse rocketed around the world. The ensuing documents totalled 532 pages. Canada, which was in the throes of a federal election campaign, was linked to the boy in initial media reports that mistakenly stated his family's application to come to Canada had been rejected. On the morning of Sept. 3, 2015, the photo of Alan lying dead on the beach appeared in newspapers around the world. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.