Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome. I'm pleased to hear that there's quite a dialogue going on here.
Ms. Bittman, I was listening to your presentation. One of my beliefs—and I think it is one for Canadians as a whole—is that the federal government's primary role is delivering particular services, services that have been in place for a long time, such as, obviously, the Canada Pension Plan, old age security. Of course, employment insurance is one of the more prominent ones that come to mind.
In our offices, we get a lot of questions. People come in with concerns about immigration cases and with all kinds of spillover. As the cuts are happening and things are starting to change, we're seeing a higher volume of questions coming in. Now, I've been told—and this is a rumour and I want to stress that—that the government is giving consideration to closing 100 of 120 Service Canada centres. When we question the minister in the House, the response we get is that people will be able to access their EI through the Internet and that....
My experience—and I presume yours may be the same—is that when most people wind up being in the position of being on EI in the first place, one of the first things to go is their Internet connection. I'm wondering if you could respond to what you may know about potential suggestions of the closure of those offices.