Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition from the citizens of Timmins. I have presented a number of these petitions in the past. We are still continuing to receive them.
The petition is with regard to the lack of passport services in northeastern Ontario and the fact that other rural regions in northwestern Ontario, for example, have walk-in passport offices but the citizens in my region must take a 12-hour bus ride to get passport service. We are a region that is absolutely dependent on passports because, as a mining sector, we have exploration and international work that goes on.
Whereas the citizens in southern Ontario have readily available, fully operational walk-in passport centres with expedited services, the residents of Timmins—James Bay are calling upon Parliament to approve the granting of a fully operational passport office in the city of Timmins to provide service to the people of northeastern Ontario, and that would include northwestern Quebec as well, to help alleviate the current workload and delays.