Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Secretary of State, for being here, as well as the others. We appreciate your being here.
I'm going to touch on a regional issue, which I bring up every time the minister comes, and I don't get any answers on it. It is regarding FedNor. It's a program, not an agency.
And congratulations to all of you on getting an agency. It's something that northern Ontario would really appreciate, but we seem to be locked up in second-class-citizen status.
The issue I'd like to ask you about is this. I've asked for numbers on FedNor a number of times, and the minister has said yes. He always says we'll get them to you, and he never gets them to us. We got a nice brochure with beautiful pictures from beautiful northern Ontario, but nothing else.
We went to the Library of Parliament and asked if we could get some numbers there. Do you know what the interesting comment from the researcher to my staff was? It was “You know, it would be a lot easier if it were an agency as opposed to a program, because then we could get the information.” So we didn't get much from them.
I am going to ask for a commitment. I was hoping to ask the minister, but I'm sure the secretary of state would be able to commit to this. Could I sit down with the Industry Canada officials for one hour without political staff present, so I could get honest answers and real answers without any source of intimidation? I wonder if I could have that commitment.