Madam Speaker, as I listened to the member's comments about this bill I became very confused. He started off criticizing the federal government's spending power, presumably under the whole aspect of manpower training. Basically what has been asked for is the federal government not use that power in such a way that it would create duplication and overlap within provincial jurisdictions.
I hear the federal government has consented to that and has basically said it will not use its spending powers. However, they want the government to do both. They want the government to give them the money in addition to curbing its powers. The reality is they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Worse than that, the hon. member went on to give us a dissertation from the national assembly in Quebec City which would, as I understand it, basically say we should have no presence there whatsoever. The member continued to argue why we should have a placement centre in his riding of Trois-Rivières. It would be more consistent if he argued there should be no placement facilities either in Shawinigan or his own riding.
It seems terribly inconsistent to me. The argument seems to have developed into "we want to have the spending, we do not want you around, but we kind of want you around too". We had a very looped discussion.
What really concerns me is the discussion about labour mobility. Basically what has been stated is that the federal government has no presence in the whole aspect of placement throughout the whole country as a nation. I do not know what the member is saying. If he has unemployed workers in Trois-Rivières and there are jobs available in New Brunswick or possibly Ontario or another jurisdiction, would he rather have those people in Trois-Rivières continue to be unemployed? Is that basically the philosophy behind these comments? Possibly the member could clarify that for me.