Thank you, Mr. Gravelle. Of course, the NDP has been...to be charitable, may have been very consistent on this message.
To me, northern Ontarians are neighbours. They are my communities, your communities. They don't care whether it's a stand-alone agency or it's a division of this or that, or whether it's a director or a captain, or whether we call the executive director of FedNor the Queen of Sheba. It doesn't matter. That isn't what matters.
What matters is that we're delivering high-quality services in partnership with communities and with businesses. That's what matters to northern Ontarians. That's what FedNor does. Its mandate shifts over time, depending upon the economic situation. It's shifting again as we're focusing on job development, job growth, and transformation of the economy in certain northern towns and cities. That's its focus right now.
It has the ability to do that because we're nimble. It's not in a straitjacket of legislation that says this is all it's going to do. We have broad terms and conditions and we allow FedNor to shift and tack with the economic exigencies at the time. I think that's what northerners really care about.
We keep having this debate year after year. Every year that we have a budget, the NDP comes back and says, "Why don't we have a stand-alone agency?" The Liberals do it too. The fact of the matter is that no one really cares about that debate. It's a sterile debate because it's not really speaking to what northerners need. They need a partner in the federal government to deliver jobs and opportunity in a way that is collaborative and effective, and that's what FedNor does and should do.