I appreciate the answers.
With respect to alternative places to do one's banking or pay one's taxes, there are many communities where there are no bank branches left. In many, many parts of this country there is no such thing as a bank branch on every corner.
You probably don't want the rant I gave in the House today in the context of Bill C-37. Again I will say, Winnipeg North has lost virtually all of its bank branches in ten years. The options are payday lenders, and I don't think you're suggesting we go there. It's not that simple in many, many communities, and Service Canada doesn't have the expertise to do that.
The service is not designed for communities that are not wealthy suburban areas, where they can get to a bank, and they have cars and they have computers. We're talking about ordinary communities with single-parent families and senior citizens who don't have a lot of resources but need some personal contact. They need somewhere to go when the problem is there...another day when they might not have someone to look after their kid or when they're squeezing it in between appointments.
So there still is that problem that we haven't addressed. I really fear for what this means for the spirit and soul of a community when we cut off everything that means anything in terms of services.
On top of that, I still have constituents calling. They try this number out. They have a simple question. They get a number. They press here, they press there, and they can't get through. Then they call me and say, “I can't get through.”
I said to Michel last time that what we're ending up with in terms of Revenue Canada is what happened with Immigration: government offloads. People don't know where to go, so where do they go? They go to their MP. So we have to then provide direct services because there's no one in government available. In the case of Immigration, in the space of six years we went from a 40% caseload to a 90% caseload, and it's all related to government offloading and outsourcing and the devolution....
I wonder if there's a plan to deal with this problem.