Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise during private member's business to speak to Bill C-207 put forward by the Bloc member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.
As has been covered in the debate, and I do not want to spend too much time describing the bill, it prescribes a tax benefit through a tax credit to allow employees, in areas which have economic challenges, who may have skills needs but may not be able to compete with some of the more attractive centres, an opportunity to work in those centres.
I can only imagine what Canada would be like if some of the smaller, economically challenged regions and communities in our country were to continue to fall behind. The population and businesses would decline, people would move away, jobs would be lost, and companies would shut down.
I believe this bill is important for Canada because it has to do with the shared value of the need for regional economic development. There are areas within our country that need some assistance from time to time to ensure they have some of the tools they need to continue to be economically vibrant.
We can imagine new graduates with the needed skills having opportunities to go to work in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. What about a place like Abitibi-Témiscamingue? Is it going to be able to compete with the fancy job in Montreal? Is it going to be able to pay the same money to attract a skills set to that area?
When I look around the country, I feel like saying that Canada is a picture or painting which has many aspects to it. How many of those parts of the picture can be taken away and still retain the integrity of the picture? It is very easy to imagine that Canada could shrink to urban economic centres. Eighty per cent of our population lives within 100 kilometres of the U.S. border.
There is a real threat and it affects not just agricultural communities, not just resource communities but thriving communities that have good fundamental economic bases, and they are at risk. That is why we have regional economic development programs because we need to ensure that there is a continuation of operations and the sustainability of communities.
When I spoke to the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, I looked at some of the names of the places. I do not know how many members may have been to places like Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland and Labrador; Cape Breton; the north shore of Nova Scotia; Miramichi or Edmundston in New Brunswick; Gaspésie; Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec; Estrie, Quebec; Laurentides; and Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
Windsor-Sarnia right now is undergoing a tremendous downturn in its economic outlook. Housing has gone down and unemployment has gone up. This was not the case a long time ago. Communities like Windsor were vibrant. The economic spin was going very well. Now, Windsor is becoming a have not area. It is just like a number of other communities across the country, whether it be in eastern or western Canada, northern Ontario or within Quebec. Circumstances change.
In fact, we are experiencing a significant shift in wealth and economic activity in Canada right now. Resource provinces are doing extremely well: Alberta, Saskatchewan and now Newfoundland. But 60% of the economic activity in Canada is in Ontario and Quebec collectively. That is where there is a lot of manufacturing going on and that is where there are going to be great pressures in terms of both employment and population dropping.
Populations are shifting where the resources are. I do not know what happens when finite resources start to disappear. I assume that people will migrate back again to the next best opportunity.
In the meantime, what will be the consequences? What areas will have to be sacrificed because we have not taken the initiative to provide certain incentives to allow them to sustain themselves when there are significant economic challenges.
We need our young people to be proud and to continue to be part of the communities in which they were raised. We do not want them all to stay in that community. We need to allow them to be as good as they can be. It may be a matter of graduates being able to go into another community which may be very similar, maybe not an urban centre, but chances are the economic advantages will not be there and will not be attractive enough for them, compared to other opportunities.
This particular bill provides at least initial economic assistance for these individuals to go, to take that job in a community that they know is the best fit for their skills, or is in an area in which they feel most comfortable. It is a win-win situation, not only for these individuals but also for the community and for the country as a whole.
I looked at the evidence presented at the finance committee. Everybody thinks that the committee did a very good job on this. I must say that I was a little concerned because one of the members of the committee, and I will not name the member or his party, but the member did say:
So the goal of your bill is to get young people to stay where they're from; it has nothing to do with making sure that the skill sets are meeting the needs of certain areas.
That tells me that this member did not even read the bill nor even understand the bill. In fact, the objective of the bill is quite the opposite. It is not to ask people to stay where they are, it is to give them the opportunity to go where they have the best opportunity to get that job and to develop those skills.
Then I hear another member over here saying, “You give them a tax benefit for one year, and then what are they going to do?” He has a lot of studies. I did not see any, but I can only assume. He can make that assertion. He asks, “After one year, what will they do?” He would say that they may leave because they are just there for the little tax credit, but once the tax credit ends, they are gone.
I know of members, even in my own caucus, who said, “My kid went to a community. He said he is going there for a year or two years”. That was eight years ago and that individual is still there doing that job because when a person gets that first job and develops that skill, his or her career is starting to build. People do not build careers by bopping around, job to job, every year, looking for a tax credit. We have to respect people's intelligence a little bit more than that.
I see that my time is up. I have a few more things that I really would like to say about the bill, but let me just say that I have taken enough time to look at it and I believe that the approach of the bill is sound.
There may be some disagreement or some discussion about the mechanics, but Quebec has had such a program since 2006. I understand that about 10,000 graduates were eligible. It is estimated that some 30,000 Canadian students, graduating with good skill sets, ready to serve Canada no matter in what region they choose to, would be eligible for such a program.
How can we be against that? It is the right thing to do. I support it and I will encourage my caucus to support the bill.