Ministerial Correspondence Control Unit

The Ministerial Correspondence Control Unit (MCCU) provides information management services by coordinating responses to the Minister’s mail. MCCU enters the Minister’s mail into the Departmental Information Management System (CCM) and works closely with departmental subject matter experts and other regional contacts to prepare draft replies for the Minister’s signature.

Hard copy letters received by mail are stamped by the Minister’s office as received and are given to MCCU by the Minister’s Office to enter into CCM. MCCU monitors and maintains the Minister’s generic email inbox (min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) however, correspondence sent to the Minister via a parliamentary e-mail account can also be forwarded to MCCU for action.

Draft replies will be prepared for Ministerial correspondence, as appropriate, and once vetted through the appropriate senior departmental officials, will be sent to the Minister’s office for review/approval.

The Minister’s Office may return a draft reply to MCCU for any number of reasons, including:

• the draft reply requires changes/updates
• the draft reply should be closed with no reply
• the draft reply has been signed by the Minister and should be mailed out by MCCU
• the draft reply has been “approved” by the Chief of Staff, meaning that the reply can be processed by MCCU with the auto-pen (see Tab B5 for Auto-Pen Procedures)

In addition to responding to the Minister’s mail, MCCU will coordinate recommendations to the Minister’s meeting requests, prepare interim replies to Environmental Petitions, and prepare regrets letters when the Minister declines a meeting request.

MCCU also provides the Minister’s Office with a daily report on all incoming letters received.