Mr. Speaker, on April 25, I attended the official opening of the largest copper mine in operation in Quebec, the Louvicourt mine, near Val-d'Or.
This mine, which will employ over 350 people for more than 10 years, is the result of a roughly $300 million investment by partners Aur, Teck and Novicourt. This impressive achievement shows how important government assistance, in the form of flow-through shares, is to mining.
We deplore the fact that the government has rejected the Standing Committee on Natural Resources' recommendation to enhance the federal contribution to the flow-through share system. The Minister of Natural Resources should be reminded that the government's involvement in mining is not an expenditure but a profitable investment that would benefit a number of mining regions in Canada and Quebec as well as thousands of workers.