Welcome, Gentlemen. Thank you for being here.
When I hear you talking about your communities, it reminds me very much of mine, the city of Trois-Rivières. I am the MP of Trois-Rivières, a city of 130,000 residents which has grown around big businesses, mainly paper companies.
Over the last 20 years, many discussions have been held and actions taken in order to encourage small and medium enterprises and try to diversify the economy. Trois-Rivières used to have the largest paper industry in Canada. This is no longer true.
It is very difficult for cities to maintain their economic strength. What we are seeing today, and which I regret, is that well-paying jobs in the paper companies have been replaced by service sector jobs, for example in large call centres. Since Trois-Rivières is a francophone city, this attracts sub-contractors of Bell Canada. But these jobs are at minimum wage and do not provide the same economic benefits for local businesses.
Mr. Staples, when you talk about a city of 9,000 people that looses 1,500 jobs, this looks tragic to me.
You say that the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology made suggestions. Indeed, these recommendations were passed unanimously in this committee. They are valuable, but the government is very slow implementing them.
You talked about the billion dollars that was announced. In our view, in the Bloc québécois — and I know it is the same in Ontario —, this is not enough. Furthermore, this money is not properly distributed because it is pro-rated on population. But Quebec and Ontario have many more businesses and people getting hit than elsewhere in the country. The manufacturing and forestry sectors will have to share the crumbs of this assistance. Finally, it is unacceptable to us that this assistance be tied to the passage of the budget. That being said, this is a political debate and I am not asking you to take part or to comment on it.
On another subject, I would like to know how the business tax reduction measures that have been announced can assist businesses who do not make any profit to restructure.
Obviously, businesses will need to modernize. Many parts of the committee report could be implemented, but this would require political will.
What advice could you give us in order to help parliamentarians to make the government understand that more appropriate measures are required? Do you have any advice for us?