Mr. Speaker, I begin by saying through you to the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve that we welcome this debate today and we welcome the spirit and tone that he has put forward in his remarks. We too are going to be constructive and specific in responding.
By the way, I do share the hon. member's view that his riding in Montreal is one of the most beautiful parts of our country. One day when he comes to Toronto he will share the view that I have of my city.
The conversion of military technology to peacetime use is something to which we in this government are committed. The member cited many examples of how people through layoffs, et cetera, were in a disastrous state, unemployed, highly skilled people. We are aware of that. We are moving.
We have to expand our thinking and maybe look at new types of instruments to help in this conversion. I want to give a specific example. Amortek is a company in Stratford, Ontario, that made military fire trucks. About a year and a half ago the need for military fire trucks was really not there. It converted to
making an environmental garbage truck that handles wet, dry, and recyclable garbage all in one unit.
It used its skilled labour to do the conversion. It did not get any grant money from the Government of Canada. What it did was enhance its marketing team by one or two people and participated in a few more trade shows in South America and the United States. It used the resources of the Export Development Corporation for credit lines and guarantees and a combination of those instruments, plus its banks are becoming a little bit more receptive to this type of environmental technology that is exportable. Right now the company has so many orders it cannot fill them.
I think it important that we communicate to those people who are in this conversion mode that they cannot just rely on the old system of funding because we are in a very difficult fiscal framework and we have all acknowledged that. I know the member acknowledges that.
Could the member not see that we could use the existing instruments like the Export Development Corporation, the chartered banks and some of the new creative funds they have and the enhanced marketing services of the export marketing development unit of the department of the minister of trade. Maybe through a little bit more creative thinking we could bridge that transition and that could help us get people back to work a little more quickly without adding further to the deficit and debt.
Could he consider that as a possible option?