Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.
Business leaders and academics and most recently the Globe and Mail have called for the end of regional development agencies across the country. The Minister of Industry has one industrial strategy yet other ministers have another strategy.
How does the Minister of Industry explain the obvious contradictory messages being sent out? While he says that regional development programs do not work, his colleagues are handing out over a billion dollars a year to repeat defaulters,
huge corporations that do not need the money, lobby groups and friends of ministers. Which one of these incompatible ministers are we supposed to understand?