Thank you.
When I started here seven and a half years ago, we had four or five CIC employees. That was dropped down to one, but at least we had a presence here. Although it wasn't a public presence, it could help to deal with clients.
We now have clients who have to travel out of this province to go to Halifax or New Brunswick to deal with IRCC. We have clients on financial assistance who don't have a lot of money. They have to collect their permanent resident cards and have to travel to Halifax.
Any errors or issues with permanent resident cards or temporary visas could be dealt with easily if we had a person based in Prince Edward Island. It would even help if we had somebody who would come and spend one week a month on Prince Edward Island so that, for example, sponsored spouses could have their interview on P.E.I. instead of having to travel to Halifax. We don't get many refugee claimants on Prince Edward Island, but when we do, there's nobody we can bring them in front of. They have to travel out of province to claim refugee status.
Those are a few examples.