I do not know exactly why it was ignored, whether it was through malice, stupidity or the usual disregard for the unanimous recommendations of a committee of this House.
I know the committee recommendation of which the member speaks. It seems ironic to me that a country with a coastline as long as Canada's should be a country that is not willing to invest in a shipbuilding strategy of its own. I certainly remember the shipbuilding lobby or whatever one wants to call it. It was not just industry. The unions and communities also came to our caucus to explain the absolute necessity of this happening.
While we are talking about ships and the lack of any national policy with respect to shipbuilding, we certainly would not expect a national policy with respect to shipbuilding from the hon. member for LaSalle--Émard. His policy when it comes to ships is to flag the ships of the Canada Steamship Lines not under the Canadian flag but under the flag of some other country where Canadian taxes can be avoided. This hardly sounds to me like leadership or at least not leadership of the kind one would want to have in charge. It seems to me that someone who aspires to be the leader of the country would not want to be open to the charge that they were actually avoiding contributing to the overall good of Canada by configuring their own company and flagging ships that belong to that company in a way to avoid Canadian taxes.