The Canadian Press reported Thursday that six federal bureaucrats were drafted to pose as new Canadians for a reaffirmation ceremony broadcast on the TV channel last October.

Kenney's office had asked the department to organize the event on short notice, adding it to the 60 events bureaucrats had planned for Canada's Citizenship Week.

The co-hosts of the show, who say they were unaware of the presence of the stand-in immigrants, repeatedly referred to the group of 10 as "new Canadians" who had "finally" received their citizenship.

A reaffirmation ceremony, however, is an opportunity for existing Canadians to retake their oath.

Kenney blamed the incident on "logistical" problems.

"I became aware that in a reaffirmation ceremony last year following logistical problems that the situation was poorly handled," Kenney said in the House of Commons.

"I regret that, but that in no way should undermine the importance and value of special reaffirmation ceremonies which we encourage all Canadians to participate in."

Documents released to The Canadian Press under access-to-information legislation show bureaucrats tried to convince Kenney's office and Sun News to abandon the ceremony idea.

They suggested the network could cover one of the 13 scheduled ceremonies in Ontario - four of them in Toronto, including one at the Air Canada Centre.

One senior bureaucrat at the registrar of Canadian citizenship expressed concern to Kenney's office that Sun News seemed to want to feature "only" the oath, which might short-change new Canadians from the full ceremony experience.

"We have to keep in mind that the ceremony should first and foremost be a special (sic) for the new citizen, most of whom will want family and friends (sic) attend this very special day in their lives," the bureaucrat wrote.

When a bureaucrat sent Sun News a list of possible citizenship ceremonies to cover in Ontario, a network employee suggested another scenario.

"Let's do it. We can fake the Oath," says an email from a @sunmedia.ca email address, the name blacked out of the document.

A source at Sun News said the employee who sent the email has since left the network and now works for the CBC. That individual did not immediately return messages to confirm or deny the information.

Serge Sasseville, a spokesman for Sun News' parent company Quebecor Inc., declined comment, instead referring questions to Sun newspaper stories.

Kenney's office wound up asking the department to organize a simple reaffirmation ceremony. When bureaucrats asked for direction on the date, a member of Kenney's staff said, "Which ever date works for Sun TV, although we would prefer (Oct.) 18th."