Madam Speaker, first of all, I must commend my hon. colleague for the profile he has presented of his region and his riding.
I must say that the picture he has painted is exactly the same wherever you go in Quebec. Our regions are emptying, our ridings are plagued by unemployment. In Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, we have remained unbeaten for years in terms of unemployment in Canada. Our people do not deserve this. Absolutely not. This government-and my hon. colleague alluded to this-is kissing an entire generation of young people goodbye. It is sacrificing that whole generation. They are without jobs.
However much the government boasts about its infrastructure program-government programs are useless anyway-the fact remains that no real job creation has taken place, only very temporary work was created. No progress has been made in bringing the unemployment rate down in even one region of Quebec. One thing is clear to us in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean: we may not get support from the federal government-and we are not talking about billions of dollars here-but we know how to innovate.
Consider the following example. The local ALCAN employees union brought the plants in Jonquière, Laterrière and Alma together through a work sharing arrangement. With no big grants or major outlay of money on the part of our governments, it succeeded in creating 120 direct jobs- you can imagine what this will mean in terms of indirect benefits down the road. It merely cost $10,000 per job created. That is what I call a job well done. That is what innovating is all about.
Compared to the millions of dollars sunk here and there sometimes just to maintain a few jobs, not even creating any-millions, if not billions, are spent here without much success-these workers who assumed responsibility for themselves managed to create jobs for just $10,000 per job. Why could the government not be as innovative as them?
I think that innovation involves job training, and that is what my question to my hon. colleague is about. He did not get a chance to elaborate on the subject of job training, and I am convinced that he was all set to do so, but ran out of time.
I would like him to share his thoughts about job training in Quebec.