It would be complicated, and I'll explain why. In a community such as Timmins, we had a good sector of the forest industry. It was owned by a francophone from Timmins. But he had takeovers. These people grow old. I'm talking about Malette Lumber Inc., which is really, really big. Now parts of it have been sold to Columbia Forest Products, which is an American company. Parts of it have been sold to Tembec. They're not from our community. They don't care that much about what's going on. And especially, they're not francophones either.
The same problem occurred in Hearst, because down there you had all the Levesques and the Lecours, who used to own the economy, and basically 90% of the sector. Now it's Columbia and Grant, and these people are not from the north.
That's the problem we face, and that's why we're static, because there's so much you can get out in dollars and it all depends on the economic strength of your community. Now there's a big crisis in the forestry industry and we're going downwards, because some of these businesses simply closed and some are being bought by multinational corporations that don't see much importance in taking care of the French community. That's why the government has a very important role to play.
What I would attach to it is results. If you're using the public's money, we agree with the principle that you have to do something with it, something efficient, something that's really connected to the needs of the community. That's why I like that graph, because with everything you see there, we did our job. We delivered the merchandise; we delivered the goods. That's why we're here. If we didn't believe we were spending the taxpayers' money adequately, we would not face this committee.
You know what it is? Some of the MPs around the table are from western Canada, from small cities. You know how tough it is to deal with a government when you're not close to it. That's our problem. We're so far up north that it's not easy for us to get the help we need, to talk to the right people and get the right connections.
Suzanne, do you want to follow up on that?