Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech of my colleague opposite. I want to comment on it and perhaps ask her a question in closing.
As you know, I am the member for Shefford. The main town in my riding is Granby. Granby is an industrial town of approximately 45,000 inhabitants. There are about 90,000 people in the region.
Cuts were announced under both human resources development ministers. This reminds of the dismantling of railways in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, you are a federalist-I have no doubt about that, Mr. Speaker-and I believe that all across Canada, employment centres are considered as a symbol of Canada. They are actually closing them down, doing away with them, so much so that Granby now receives only $36,000 from the federal government in lieu of taxes. Might as well say there is no federal presence in our region.
When our great country was created, the federal government's goal was to distribute wealth fairly across the territory. But now, my region is cut off by this government. Some 50 or 55 people were working in the employment centre, and now the government is considering going down to 12 or maybe 18 employees-no decision has been made yet.
This is sad for my region. It is a heavy blow since the employment centre, as it was organized, was making a significant contribution to the region's development. It is a whole network they are breaking up. This network is important for the regions. It is important for Quebec, for its development. Usually, all kinds of people are represented on boards of trade, people from every political affiliation, mostly federalists.
The Granby Board of Trade circulated a petition that was signed by over 6,000 people to condemn the government's attitude and to ask it to give more consideration to regions. As I said earlier, employment centres are a symbol of the Government of Canada, but this symbol is about to disappear because of the policies of the department and the minister.
My question is this: When the government makes decisions like the one to reform the system, why does it ignore the other governments? I would like to hear the member's comments on that matter.