Mr. Speaker, this situation is going to get worse with the coming of the land crossing piece of the western hemisphere initiative next January. Northern, rural and remote Canada is being hit hardest as people drive 10 to 20 hours and pay for hotel rooms to access passport services.
Will the minister open up more passport offices? For example, there is no passport office in northeastern Ontario. He can open an office in Sault Ste. Marie, a border community with over a quarter of a million people within a three hour drive.
Passports are a government service and people are paying big bucks for that service. New passport offices would help clean up this mess.