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ButStubbs told the Post she is worried the government is making administrative decisions without consulting communities, and on bad advice — another document she provided shows the department would actually spend millions more moving the Vegreville office to Edmonton, rather than saving money.

“If this can be done to Vegreville, it can happen anywhere in Canada,” she said. “And it seems to be all driven by this aim to centralize offices in urban areas, and the impact is to remove them from rural communities.”

Stubbs added she has received support from Liberal MPs, especially in Atlantic Canada, who are familiar with trying to protect jobs in smaller population centres. She said it would be “interesting” to see what kinds of decisions the Liberal government makes when its own MPs’ ridings could be affected by closures.

A government response to a petition asking for the Vegreville office to stay says IRCC had a “difficult” time making the decision and “it is recognized that the staff in Vegreville are doing great work.” Still, the relocation is going ahead at the end of 2018.

Employees aren’t being fired but many of them won’t be able to move away or make the commute, Stubbs said, so they’ll be forced to resign their positions. The office employs about five per cent of the community.

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British Columbia MP Jenny Kwan, the immigration critic for the New Democrats, visited Vegreville this summer. She called the government’s decision “unilateral,” criticized a lack of consultation with townspeople, the mayor or city council, and labelled the office closure a “colossally disastrous move.”