Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. He has put his finger right on the problem, and it is an even larger problem in rural areas and in the regions.
This budget affects farmers. We talked about that earlier. My colleague opposite seemed to say that everything is going as it should, while in the east things are desperate.
For the unemployed this budget is a disaster. In my area, in Amqui, a small town of 6,000 inhabitants, 4,500 to 5,000 people demonstrated to protest against the employment insurance plan, and they did not do so for the fun of it.
I remember very well that 20 years ago the same people or their fathers or mothers demonstrated in the streets because unemployment was at an unacceptable level. This year, their children have taken to the street, because the unemployment rate in my region is even higher.
This means that this budget is not a source of hope but of hopelessness.
Another thing I have just found out is that, as in the case of the royal military college in Saint-Jean, the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, a research and development centre in my riding, that is wellknown at the local, national and international levels, because its researchers come from all over the world, is facing drastic budget cuts that will force several of its staff to go find work elsewhere.
When I asked the Minister if this was true, he told me about the need to streamline, that it was Mr. Martin's fault. In my region, it is very difficult to accept. They are going to cut funding to Quebec's only fisheries research and development school. What tells me that the amounts will not be increased in Ontario or elsewhere?
This is really very hard to take in Quebec. I referred earlier to the Collège militaire royal in Saint-Jean, where our officers used to receive superb training in French. That is gone. Now funding for the Lamontagne institute will gradually dry up. This was a venture with a future, with plans to increase the number of researchers over the next five or ten years, until drastic cuts were announced.
If that is what my hon. friends opposite call a good budget, I suggest that they go and tell that to the regions. As far as producers from my region are concerned, the president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada lives in my riding, I could almost say in my parish. He told me: "René, it will have a terrible effect". It is terrible, although most producers in our region get by. In terms of climate, when I travel to Gatineau, I notice that farmers there can sow one month sooner. In our region, farmers have to wait one month, sometimes six weeks more before they can do so. Such are the laws of nature and there is nothing we can do about it. As a result, farmers in the east are penalized. And so are fishermen, with their quotas being cut.
My hon. colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup has painted a very accurate picture of the situation. I have a simple question for him. What future will our young people have after this budget is implemented? Will there be incentives to remain in the region longer? The university is 120 kilometres away. Up til last year, the only cégep was located in Matane, and there was none in the Matapedia Valley. This meant that, just to attend college upon graduating from high school, our young people had to go to Rimouski, Matane or Quebec City. That is totally unacceptable.
I will put my question again to my hon. colleague: Does he foresee a better future for our young people? Will they be able to remain in our regions longer?