Mr. Speaker, today I would like to reiterate my hope that the authorities involved in this matter will understand how important it is for local populations to have their say about border crossing closures. People of all ages and all walks of life have rallied around this issue. Business people, firefighters, municipal elected officials and even American neighbours all agree. They should be the first to be consulted because the Canada Border Services Agency needs to understand that it makes no sense to close Franklin Centre and Jamieson's Line. These decisions should be based on more than just biased calculations about the number of users.
Once again, the dollar value of the economic fallout of these decisions is unknown, but the closures will definitely be disastrous for many people. Local economies and quality of life will deteriorate instead of improving.
I urge the minister to allow municipal elected officials to meet with representatives of the Canada Border Services Agency to talk about alternatives to closing these two ports of entry.