Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The supplementary estimates include a transfer from the Treasury Board to the IRB. I was heartened to actually read that the IRB office here in Ottawa was originally set to close at the start of this month and it has now been delayed until the end of the year. But delaying the closure doesn't actually fix the eventual consequences that it will force lawyers, legal staff...and require many refugees, who have very limited means to travel, to travel to Montreal within two months of arriving in Canada for their hearings.
Legal Aid Ontario has suggested that it might be able to fund the lawyers' travel, at least temporarily, and I wonder if that's even fair, shifting the burden onto the province. But what do you say to those refugees without the means of making the trip? Video conferencing is an option that you seem to be encouraging elsewhere. New facilities in Winnipeg and Edmonton suggest as much. But here in Ottawa, plans to close the video conferencing room still remain.
Why does it seem that refugees are the targets of so many cuts?