Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. I imagine it
will greatly reassure the Minister of Industry, since I will be taking the liberty of quoting the Prime Minister of Canada, so I trust both of us will understand the same thing.
On October 22, in Montreal, in a fine speech filled with good intentions, the Prime Minister stated as follows, in connection with the high tech industries: "In the future, the federal government must, and will, help these industries to expand in Montreal." Yet this is far from the situation in reality. Again this week, we learn that the federal government is speeding up the closure of CITI, the Centre for Information Technologies Innovation, in Laval, and has given up on the idea of privatizing it, despite an offer from the private sector, which was made in due form.
Does the minister realize that closing CITI, which had more than 135 high tech jobs two years ago and received some $13 million annually, is not the way for his government to help high tech industries to expand?