My constituents were told that the services were being shut down in Iroquois Falls and Kirkland Lake. Kirkland Lake has 15,000 people and no passport service. New Liskeard area has 15,000 people and no passport service. They were being told to go to their member of Parliament. My office runs clinics, with one person going in to cover every possible federal service.
I don't really think it's our responsibility to pick up the slack for a decision your department made to cut off passport service to people in northern Ontario. If you're going to cut off a Service Ontario pilot project, which was a very good project that serviced under-serviced communities that are much farther than 60 kilometres away from any walk-in office, why have you not put the resources in place to ensure that Service Canada will pick up the slack? I don't think telling them to go to the pony express is a reasonable alternative.