You talk about a significant cost in postal fees, except that also includes your cost to send that passport to the individual, priority post, and because the number of passports was so high, of course your costs would be a lot higher. It's not just moving the applications from one centre to the other. You can do those in batches. Part of your high mailing costs is actually for returning them to the people who've applied. So I'm not sure how much of an excuse that gives you to not locate issuing offices in other regions. I will grant you that when it's all electronic, it will make it much sooner.
I asked you that question because there are models in terms of hiring employees in parts of the country where it's incredibly stable, where other agencies of Canada do it and do very well. I'll give you an example. Veterans Affairs in Kirkland Lake is a good example. They're located in an area.... I would guarantee you that those employees do not leave their jobs there. Training them is really an investment, because you can keep training them and they do more and more. I'm wondering if you have considered that kind of office, a satellite office where they actually can issue passports.
I'm not sure I totally believe you about how costly it is to ship from one area to a processing office when you're sending the big batches. I think your other costs are related more to the passport going to the individual.
I don't mind challenging you, because I've been doing passports through my office for twenty years, and they were done before, and I understand all the machinations of the passport business, believe me. So I'm going to let you try to answer this one.