Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying to the hon. member that I can assure him that the Minister of Industry does not have his foot on the brakes on this particular issue. In fact, it is quite the reverse. He has the pedal right to the metal, as they say, and we are going full bore on this particular issue of the electronic highway.
I want to remind the House that, first of all, it was announced in the speech from the throne that we were going to develop a strategy for Canada's information highway. On February 2 the secretary of state for science and technology committed the federal government to a number of objectives and principles to guide and develop the approach.
We talked about the advisory council because it is a very important issue. It is a complex issue and we wanted to make sure that the council would have a broad range of groups and organizations that would help formulate Canada's strategy in this particular area. Also, we want to make sure that there is representation from not just industry but from labour, education and consumers.
The council, which is in the process of being put together right now, will be announced very soon. This council will provide advice to the government and it is going to be active on line. I can tell the member that this government is putting incredible resources behind the information highway, the electronic highway.
I can speak about our own case in which we are beginning to put information out. In the Toronto region we are doing some testing which will go into other regions. We are looking at ideas for community access centres. Let me reassure the member that this government is committed in a very serious way and will be moving very fast. We welcome his input.