Thanks.
I certainly recognize how difficult it is for the individuals, the workers, the families, the communities. There's no underplaying that. But I think the other side of this is there are a lot of difficulties if you don't do that. In my view, while the dollar may not stay at par for the next five years, I don't think it's going to spend a lot of the next five years below 90ยข, so they're in for a pretty tough time if they don't move from some communities--a very tough time.
What would the country look like if people hadn't moved out of rural Saskatchewan 30 or 40 years ago, and the government had just subsidized them so their communities didn't shrink? Some communities there have shrunk significantly. Some have disappeared.
The other thing I would say is certainly I don't think anybody should do anything more than offer increased opportunities to those people to move, if they want. It's very clear that when western employers go there, people respond. I think the federal government should be in there helping them out as well. I also think, if they don't want to move, okay, that's fine. I've been in Cape Breton, and I'd probably rather live there than in Toronto. It's a very pleasant place. But I ask you this: if you're a worker suffering through all the problems we've got in Toronto, and there are quite a few--it's a tough place to live--and you're earning $30,000 or $40,000 a year, and the government is subtracting unemployment insurance from your pay, if that person in the east were to take that job and get off unemployment insurance, this person wouldn't have to be taxed to pay.... So while it's nice to think it's very hard for those people to move, the point is, they're being subsidized by other people. It's very difficult for some other people to subsidize them.