The most remote regions are those losing the most people. Often, they are single-industry regions, and depend on one industry alone. Often, in the traditional economic base of those regions, there is little room for skilled jobs. We can see that with the forestry crisis; we see regions that depend on a single industry, particularly a cyclical industry, with an economy that relentlessly goes up and down. The government has said that efforts had to be made to develop new businesses in other areas in an attempt to diversify the economy of those regions. Unfortunately, however, those regions don't have the manpower to foster the establishment of new businesses in new areas.
The Government of Quebec has studied the regions that depend on a single industry, where young people leave and where unemployment is high, and has established those three criteria. It considered six administrative regions, along with a number of regional county municipalities—I don't know whether RCMs exist outside Quebec—included in some of the administrative regions, such as Mauricie, Mr. Laforest's region, which is not a designated region. But inside the Mauricie region, some RCMs, like the RCM of Mékinak, which is further north, are designated because they are single-industry regions. Mékinak's economy has declined, its population has declined, and its economy needs to be diversified.