NDP member wants Northern passport office. In Sudbury

NEWS RELEASE

CLAUDE GRAVELLE, MP

************************* Gravelle demands passport office for Northeastern Ontario

OTTAWA (September 14, 2009) - MP Claude Gravelle (Nickel Belt) met with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon in the House of Commons to demand a passport office in Northeastern Ontario.

“I met with the minister this afternoon to explain to him why Northeastern Ontario requires its own passport office. My office is flooded every week with passport applicants, we process about 60 every month,” commented Gravelle. “We need a passport desk at the Service Canada office to handle routine passport applications.”

In the spring, Gravelle sent a letter to Minister Canon requesting a passport office, the minister responded by pointing to the ability of applicants to mail in their own passport applications as well as to the clinics held by Passport Canada once or twice per year in the region.

“Most people aren’t comfortable mailing their birth certificate or driver’s license. It just makes sense and would be far more economical for the government to open a desk at Service Canada in Sudbury then to have the MPs’ offices couriering passport applications every week,” concluded Gravelle.

Gravelle is expecting a response to his request in the coming weeks.

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