Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few brief remarks to give the House an idea of what is going on in the regions with regard to important issues such as the one raised by my colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata, namely the granting of a broadcasting licence to Québec-Téléphone.
Such a licence would put regions such as the North Shore more or less on an equal footing with the large cities as far as communications are concerned. I will start by giving a quick overview since my colleague covered the subject in more detail.
Québec-Téléphone was founded in 1927 by Jules A. Brillant. It is important to note that in 1966, in order to have access to the capital he needed to modernize and develop his network, Mr. Brillant gave up his interest in the company. GTE Corporation became majority shareholder, which allowed to keep the head office in Rimouski. That was done to protect the regional character of the company.
To better understand the difficulties Québec-Téléphone faces, it is important to know the context in which it operates. The territory it serves extends over 72,000 square kilometres, which is 40 per cent of Quebec's total area. Québec-Téléphone is independent in its decision-making and in the choice of its suppliers. One important detail I want to mention is that French is the company's only working language.
During my speech, I will talk a lot about the regions because Québec-Téléphone is essentially an image of the regions and of the kind of service that can be offered and obtained in the regions. It must be noted also that the company is technologically advanced, offering affordable digital service to all its clients in the regions.
Of course, the company is proud of offering equal access to advanced services such as teleforum, videoforum, cellular telephony, 911, Internet, which is very popular right now, and I would add that the information highway is the key to the future.
I was just reading a document describing the information highway as a way of putting all regions at the heart of economic activity. It said it gave access to "cybervillages", a typical term in this field.
What is Québec-Téléphone's contribution from the economic point of view? There is mention of close to $75 million in salaries in 1995, paid to nearly 1,700 employees spread out more or less
across the area. Despite difficulties in covering the territory, there are 1,700 workers, 600 of which are also share-holders. This is a figure worth noting.
There is also more than $800 million worth of property throughout the area, as well as modern tools for communicating with customers.
Québec-Téléphone contributes to social and cultural development through such means as promoting culture, particularly via its directory, which always features the work of local artists.
Financial support to the arts is a very important aspect, and one not shared by other regional businesses: close to $100,000 in funding to museums, theatre and music in 1995, for example.
One of the key problems encountered, and one for which no one can be blamed, it is just a regional reality: some, if not most, of regional businesses merely siphon off local funds, perhaps even taking away raw materials. Not all of them do so, and not all of them do so to an indecent extent but, if we look at businesses in the regions and compare the value of what is taken out of the region with the sums ploughed back into the region, investment in culture and young business entrepreneurs, for example, true implication is a fair exchange. Québec-Téléphone has earned good marks in this regard, for it has no other investments to protect and to build up elsewhere. Think Québec-Téléphone and you think North Shore, the Gaspé, all those areas my colleague for Rimouski-Témiscouata has just mentioned.
Québec-Téléphone is therefore in the vanguard as far as efforts invested in cultural and social development are concerned.
There is also mention of a $350 000 donation in 1995 to the east Quebec cancer society, over 7 years.
Furthermore, its employees are involved in education, health care, culture, socio-community activities, sports, economics and politics, areas in which they put some 26,000 hours back into the region in 1995. This is a huge amount of time. I know from experience that the corporation vigorously encourages its employees to get involved in the arts. I know that many are involved, not only politically but socially and in the community, pretty much everywhere. The company often provides flexibility in terms of working hours in order to offer organizations in these areas some help.
Québec-Téléphone contributes more than $1 million a year to research and development. It has an endowed chair in optical telecommunications at Laval University, a French language research centre on organization automation, and so on.
As time is moving along, I will shorten my next point, which concerns the high rate of unemployment and the exodus of young people in fringe areas. Therefore it has to be shown that the company wants to continue to increase regional development.
With the famous information highway connecting our regions, it helps outlying regions like eastern Quebec, which encompasses a considerable area. Things are made so much easier that, through these technologies, progress is being made at essentially the same rate. Regions are not necessarily at an advantage, because that would mean they have more, but they are more or less on the same footing.
The problem for everyone in the regions is the transmission of information, getting up to date more quickly. With the new capabilities Québec-Téléphone is asking for, this problem would be resolved with a totally regional flavour, something that would not be guaranteed with outside firms. Québec-Téléphone has proven itself in this area and, I am sure, will continue to do so.
I will conclude by saying that the firm has demonstrated its ability in this regard. I think all Bloc members would endorse what would be, in my view, a justified swing of the pendulum in its favour while ensuring the region served by the company is well represented in its future development.