Thank you for your presentation. We're pretty much at the conclusion of having the regional development agencies come in. I read your testimony when you appeared before the industry committee back in April, and they are much the same comments.
I bring that up because these are pre-budget consultations, and it is an opportunity for a regional development agency to come in and essentially pitch MPs on what you think you need more of. You're not alone in this; I'm just observing your.... Unfortunately, you're the last ones. Maybe you can take it back to industry, but I'm a little disappointed there were not a lot of asks. I think you're the only one to actually point out the fact that you'd like to have more money, thank you very much; it would be better to have more money. I don't think it's a bad thing to ask.
Bearing in mind that I think you're pretty smart people, I do have one question. I'm very interested in single industry towns. I come from Cape Breton. Obviously, we had a single kind of industry town. All the industries left town, so there really isn't anything...and it hasn't rebounded to any extent in 40 years.
Do you have any innovative ideas you'd like to pitch right now on a program, a policy, something for us to look at that may be able to alleviate the problems? You guys are on the ground. You understand what's happening in these small communities. It would be really nice to have, as an MP, an idea of some innovative thinking that's going on within the development agency or in Industry Canada to solve some of these problems. It's our opportunity to tell the Minister of Finance what direction we think he should be going in when it comes to all of these regional economic development agencies.
I want you to be more than a service provider, a pass-through of government funds. Tell me what you think we should be doing.