Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources has announced the elimination of the $7.5 million grant that was paid annually to the tokamak project at the Canadian centre for magnetic fusion located in Varennes.
By killing this research project on a new form of clean energy that creates jobs, the minister sacrifices 20 years of development work in the area of fusion, $70 million in infrastructure and about 100 specialized jobs.
The minister had the audacity to say in this House that about 25 per cent of her department's investments in research and development were in Quebec. However, the union of professional scientists at the Institut de recherche en énergie du Québec tells us that, at the present time, the federal Department of Natural Resources and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited spend only 8 per cent of their energy research and development budget in Quebec. With the elimination of the tokamak project, this would fall to 6 per cent.
Once again Quebec is the big loser as a result of cuts made without any consideration for the future.