Thank you very much for your question.
I'll give you a snapshot of the community adjustment fund and then my take on where I think it's going to help. The community adjustment fund provides $1 billion over two years to help mitigate short-term impacts of restructuring in communities across Canada, including forest-dependent and mining-dependent communities. The fund will support activities such as community transition plans that foster economic development, science and technology initiatives, and other measures to promote economic diversification. Of course, today one that was mentioned that would be helpful is something along the lines of reforestation or silviculture.
As many of you know, I grew up in a one-industry town in Cape Breton that suffered from the depletion of the coal mines and the closing of the steel plant. I'm acutely aware of the effects and the necessity of having government smartly, strategically, responsibly, and reasonably inject economic development and economic hope in the community. I really do believe that the approach being taken by this government is the appropriate one, given the circumstances, that making an adjustment fund available to put people back into economic diversification and development, into reforestation, into jobs is a much better avenue than dealing with matters in other ways, or not dealing with matters at all.
So in terms of communities that are hard hit, not only do I understand the issues associated with it, but seeing my community having done so much better in the past number of years, compared to the way it was in the 1980s and 1990s in Sydney, I do know that there is a way through economic turmoil. I certainly believe that the fund I've outlined here today will go a very long way to helping communities move along in the system. We're so blessed with our natural resources, mining and forestry. The industries are very positive about how we will be coming out of the downturn and continue to look to new ways to invest and, in the meantime, weather the situation and move through to more prosperity. Our job is to make sure the communities are there and taken care of, so they can provide the people skills and innovation to continue.