Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to reply. I wish the hon. member would read what I said when I had an opportunity in a systematic way to outline my views on the matter.
I am in full agreement that the maritimes at a time when the world's wealth was determined by the availability of natural resources was one of the most prosperous regions of the world. The people of the maritimes were working very hard then and they are working very hard today. They would be most prosperous today, I am saying, if the government had not made the mistake of saying to the people of those regions: "You can stay there as long as you want to. We will always maintain your income at a certain level".
The world has changed. Wealth today is no longer a function of natural resource availability. Singapore today has moved into the league of industrial countries and Singapore does not even have its own water supply. The source of income and wealth today is human capital which functions, unfortunately for the resources of the countries of the world, only in big cities. That is why income is so high in large cities.
We would not have today the difficulties we are seeing in the maritimes, in my considered judgment, if we had not had a program motivated by the charitable instincts of Canadians, which I appreciate. That is the only point I wish to make.