Mr. Speaker, the short answer to the member's question is certainly our vision of a new Canada includes Atlantic Canada. It includes a reinvigorated Atlantic Canada economy.
What the other member was referring to, and he meant no offence, was that for the last 30 years the way we have tried to stimulate economic development in Atlantic Canada has been through regional development grants. The Canadian approach to regional development is now quoted by economists the world over as the way not to do it. We have invested billions of dollars and the unemployment rates and the economic growth rates in those provinces are no better than they were when we started.
The alternative is embraced in this vision. Regional development programs of the future will be exploiting the north-south dimensions of free trade. Part of the country that has the strongest regional economy today is British Columbia which is doing exactly that. The premier of the province of New Brunswick is working on a strategy to that effect which we believe is the regional development wave of the future.