Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, whom I would like to congratulate. With the unemployment rate in Canada at over 10 per cent, in the United States at 5.5 per cent, and in Quebec at 12 per cent, I wonder about this inequity.
How is it that, for the past 20 years, the unemployment rate in Quebec has almost always been 2 per cent higher than in the rest of Canada? Sovereignty is certainly not a factor, since it was the same when Mr. Lesage and Mr. Trudeau were in power. Does it mean that things are poorly distributed in Canada, that research and development are channelled more into Ontario and that we are being given crumbs, which I would today call misery insurance?
I would like to know whether my colleague shares these ideas and how is it that the government talks about being prepared to help the weakest regions, from sea to sea, when in my riding of Matapédia-Matane, no matter what we do, no matter what is undertaken, no matter how many Operations Dignity are launched, no matter how many public rallies are held, nothing is happening. But all we want to do is work where we live.
We are not asking for gifts, we just want what we are entitled to. I have a very positive example: investing in forestry is a plus. It pays the government well in terms of taxes. Instead of being given job security benefits, income security benefits or employment insurance benefits, people have a job.
However, we see that the federal government, which had a plan I considered acceptable, profitable for it, made cuts. There is an easy answer to this one, that forestry is a provincial matter-that is true in part-except that forestry workers pay their income taxes to Ottawa, and when they put gasoline in their chain saws, they pay a tax to the federal government.
I would simply ask my colleague from Chicoutimi whether he shares these ideas and what he might propose to have it change?