Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. I congratulate him on it, but I have a couple of questions and a couple of concerns.
I am not absolutely certain but I think I heard him indicate that he was relegating his riding to surviving simply on social assistance, that was to be the mainstay of his riding's economy. I cannot see that as a viable long term solution for his riding.
My riding suffers from high unemployment as well. I come from a rural area with a number of communities. Although we see the importance of social programs to help us through difficult times, we see economic development and the pursuit of rebuilding the economy and creating new jobs as being the long term solution, not simply social programs.
My second observation is that there seemed to be a great amount of concern among the needy of his riding, as he described them, as to from what level of government the assistance comes. It has been my experience when dealing with individuals who are in need of government assistance that their primary concern is that they receive the assistance. They do not much care about a battle between different levels of government getting in the way of the assistance getting to them.
I thought the member might like to comment on those two points.