Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to exchange comments with the parliamentary secretary, but I think I ought to tell him, with respect, that his speech contained two contradictions. I want to point out that his impassioned defence of small business has always been well received by my party. I know that some of my colleagues here today are working very hard with him in committee.
He is probably aware that Montreal is the poorest city in Canada; the Montreal area has the largest number of poor families and poor people in this country. In East Montreal, we had a program called the PRIEM program, which was set up five years ago. All parties involved in this program asked the government to extend it. The program gave small businesses access to capital to update their facilities, and it created about 30 per cent of the new jobs in East Montreal.
If the minister and his government had been serious about using small business as part of their economic recovery strategy, it seems to me Montreal would have received a favourable answer to its request for an extension to this program. It did not, however. We and other members had a meeting with the Minister of Finance. We made certain representations, as did the community of Montreal, but unfortunately, the program will not be extended. That was the first contradiction I wanted to point out, and I would appreciate it if the minister would comment.
I would also like to hear his comments on a second issue, the technology question. On several occasions the minister has said in the House, with considerable eloquence, that his party was prepared to go all the way with technology and that this was a major priority. Unfortunately this was not reflected in the budget, and the scientific community got even less than it expected. There is not much in the budget that would point to a genuine national strategy on technology.
I wish he would offer some thoughts on the information highway. All parties concerned agree that if we are to have a national information highway some day, government funding will be needed. It is not true that only private capital is needed.
However, we can find no indication in this budget that the government will help implement this information highway.