Mr. Chair, I'm going to take up Mr. Alghabra's challenge about proposing an amendment. I think it would address some of the concerns I have on this overlap and recognize that it is a forestry sector and we want to get to the forestry sector as part of this committee.
My amendment would be to basically drop the “manufacturing” word and rather than say, “start distributing among the relative size”, the motion would read:
Given the seriousness of the crisis rocking the forestry sector, that the committee recommend the government introduce as soon as possible an approved aid package for the forestry sector to diversify forestry economies, which is to be administered by Quebec and the other provinces, and that a recommendation be reported by the committee to the House at the earliest opportunity after our study of the forest industry.
That way, we would be able to get our hands around what we want to recommend, we could possibly build on the $1 billion community development trust, and it would get to things like when you look at manufacturing.... And Mr. Tonks raises a very good point. Small manufacturing in my riding would like to have working capital assistance right now because of some of the exchange on the dollar and the tremendous fluctuation they're seeing in their receivables right now. You probably can't do that for the forest industry because that would be seen as a subsidy.
Those are some issues I'm very concerned about, and that's why I would propose that amendment, Mr. Chair.