Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois about this excellent private member's bill, introduced by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, a member who does an excellent job. I would also like to say that the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord is an example for everyone in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region, a region that, for various reasons, is not always favoured economically. One of those reasons is the current serious forestry and manufacturing crisis.
Obviously, one way to deal with the forestry and manufacturing crisis is to encourage businesses to hire young people. That is what this wonderful bill, Bill C-207, introduced by my colleague for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, seeks to do.
I will summarize the bill for you. The Bloc Québécois does not reinvent the wheel. Our goal in this House has never been to claim that we are all-knowing. We are able to look at what other parliaments are doing and borrow their positive initiatives. One of those positive initiatives came from the Quebec government, which implemented a similar credit in 2003. Their goal was to curb the exodus of young people—this bill has that same goal—as well as to deal with the shortage of skilled labourers.
This bill would introduce a tax credit for young graduates who accept jobs in a resource region. Under the bill, this credit would be equal to 40% of the young graduate's salary for the first year, to a maximum of $8,000.
In 2003, the first year the Government of Quebec instituted a similar credit, 2,500 young workers applied for it. In 2004, the number rose to 9,700. There was a tremendous increase of 7,000 young workers between 2003 and 2004.
This applies to all designated regions, which are regions with a declining population. That is the bill's objective. As I have already said, and will continue to say, my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord is being practical. He looked at the situation in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, decided to take the bull by the horns and deal with depopulation.
There is not one member in this House who can afford to ignore such situations. When areas such as Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean experience an exodus of youth we must try to find solutions. The member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord has made a good attempt, in tabling Bill C-207, to do something about the exodus of youth and the shortage of skilled labour.
This tax credit for designated regions will not apply to just the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area. The bill will apply to all Quebec and Canadian regions that may experience depopulation so that we can retain our youth and deal with the shortage of skilled labour.
We will see, in this House, those members who care about the regions. We will see where political parties stand when they vote on Bill C-207. I cannot fathom that there would be a Conservative member who would vote against. The former mayor of Roberval is from the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region and the member forRoberval—Lac-Saint-Jean. I met this member when he was mayor of Roberval and he had a backbone. It seems that he has become spineless since becoming a member of the Conservative Party. We will see what he does and how he will react to the vote on Bill C-207.
Once again, the minister responsible for this region, the member for Jonquière—Alma, has already said he opposes this bill. That is not surprising because he was already a spineless Conservative. He only has himself to blame.
There is one thing, however. Once again, this bill, which was introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, simply duplicates a measure adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec in 2003 that produced positive results. I invite people to listen to the figures once again. I am pleased to repeat them, since some of my colleagues in this House seem to prefer to hold the party line. They will be given documents prepared by their research staff and what I have to say will certainly not appear in their documents.
With respect to the program instituted in Quebec, in 2003, 2,500 people took advantage of it and in 2004, that number rose to 9,700 people. It continues to increase all the time. This therefore allows businesses to hire young people and allows the regions to stop the exodus of young people. It does not apply to all regions of Quebec. Some regions of Quebec are seeing a growth in population, like elsewhere in Canada.
The regions that are experiencing growth do not warrant such assistance, but we must do everything we can to keep young people and jobs in the regions with declining populations. We must stop the decline of the regions. That is the major problem created by the current crisis in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. We run the risk of losing our entire work force in the regions, of losing all the expertise and experience of those men and women who were the economic driving force of our regions.
And this is all because the Conservative Party decided not to give businesses direct assistance. They offer tax credits, but those are not refundable. A forestry or manufacturing business that is not turning any profit will not get any tax credits and cannot benefit from the advantages of the budget that was tabled. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that if a business is not paying taxes, tax credits must be refundable.
We also need a plan to help companies modernize. In the case of the forestry sector, trees will continue to grow. It is not a matter of telling people, as the Conservatives are doing, to try to find a new career, when forestry workers have experience in that field. They are being told to go into computer technology or into other economic diversification sectors. Meanwhile, the trees will continue to grow. If we want to compete, we need to modernize our companies and help them purchase state-of-the-art technology so that they can become more competitive and regain their position on the market.
The Conservatives decided to leave it to the free market. They saw that smaller companies had been taken over by larger ones, and that the larger ones will not make it through the crisis. The situation will play out as they want it to. There will be regions living off the forest that will no longer have an economy, and the people will move to larger centres. That is not what the Bloc Québécois wants.
My colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord is doing excellent work. I am always surprised by what I read in the news in his region. Even the media, which is often rather tough on the Bloc Québécois, believe that he is doing excellent work. That is to his credit, but not to the credit of the two Conservative members from the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region.
I am anxious to see how the Conservative members will vote on this bill. I thought that the former mayor of Roberval, the member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, found it interesting. Then he realized that there is the Conservative Party line to toe when the minister, the member for Jonquière—Alma, said that he opposed the idea. He is probably about to vote against a measure that would help young workers in his region and stop them from leaving the area.
I always find that surprising. I am always amazed to see a Quebecker buckle before the Canadian right and to give in. I have a great deal of difficulty with that. He is repudiating our values, the interests we defend and our citizens for the sake of the future of a political party that no longer has a future and that will see what happens in the next election. Perhaps the time has come for Quebec MPs to rise and defend the regions of Quebec, whether they are Conservatives or Liberals.
They will be in a position to say to Quebec's designated regions experiencing depopulation and the exodus of their youth that, for once, they will implement a positive measure on their behalf—one that produced results in 2003 when implemented by a similar law by the Quebec government. Quite simply, it would give this opportunity—