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Ottawa Citizen

Deachman: In search of Mark Carney's constituency office

John Van de Brook went online recently to search for the constituency office address of his local MP, Nepean Liberal Mark Carney. There's been a recent rat infestation in Barrhaven, and while he had already reached out to the office of his municipal councillor, Van de Brook thought he might as well cover all the bases. After all, it wasn't so many months ago that his then-MP, Chandra Arya, helped solve a problem that Van de Brook's wife was having with her permanent resident card. Who knows, he figured maybe Carney could help with this? Article content Article content Alas, Van de Brook couldn't locate Carney's office because, well, there isn't one. Article content Article content Article content 'I was disappointed,' Van de Brook said. 'He should have one.' Article content He's not the only Nepean resident with that view. 'As a senior, there aren't a lot of places where we can go to talk to someone in person,' said a woman, Elaine, who asked that her surname be withheld. 'Doing everything online is so impersonal. Article content 'Carney's here, he's acting on our behalf. He should definitely have an office here.' Another, Lyndsay, who lives a couple of blocks from Arya's former office on Kennevale Drive at Strandherd, agreed. Article content 'I have family members who needed immigration services, and this was during COVID. So we reached out to Chandra. He put a person on the file, and every month there would be a touchpoint and we would talk about what was happening. It was helpful. Article content 'But now, you might see something on Facebook telling you to contact your MP. When I see that, my first thought is that technically, we have an MP, but we have nowhere to contact an MP. And because of the role of our MP, it doesn't feel like there's someone representing our riding.' Article content Article content Meanwhile, two other newly elected MPs in the area, Prescott-Russell-Cumberland's Giovanna Mingarelli and Carleton's Bruce Fanjoy, have their local offices set up — Fanjoy's in June. More than 3 months after Nepean residents elected Carney to represent them in the House of Commons, one thing the PM hasn't gotten around to is opening a riding office. Article content Article content And if someone were to search online for Carney's riding office, they'd be pointed to Arya's now-empty quarters. Article content I get that he's the prime minister and has more important things to worry about than the passport someone in Barrhaven absentmindedly allowed to expire or the veteran's benefits paperwork another Nepeanite is having difficulty filling out. But the absence of a physical place where constituents can go and actually talk to a human about their concerns can't help but rankle the citizenry and remind many of the perils of electing a politician wearing a parachute, including the risk that he might never actually land there.