Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the situation. I see it in pockets in other parts of the country as well. Cape Breton is a large enough area and it is in our folklore in Canada. Even though I am not a part of Cape Breton and never have been, it is a little pocket of Canadiana we are all proud of in some special way. I do not know exactly why, but it is there and we are focusing on that today. We also see it in pockets across the country in other natural resource areas. I mentioned Cassiar as an example, which virtually does not exist anymore. There are pockets where that happens.
I went to the region a couple of years ago during the general election of 1997. Our candidate took me down the road. He did not win. He did not even come close, but he showed me something which was built with an ACOA grant on one side of the street during the reign of the Liberals for a Liberal. Then he showed me that another guy had built a new roof for his hotel when the Tories were in power. I said that it could not be that bad. He said that the way it works is, if you do not know the guy at the top, you do not get anything, and that is just the way it goes.
Coming from western Canada it was just too bizarre for me to believe. I could not believe that a system could be run so corruptly. I sympathize with the NDP because it has not been in power in this place, so it has not been able to pull those strings. It is a tribute that the NDP got elected. That is an amazing fact.
The truth is that if the solution was an ACOA grant or a descendant of ACOA, then I would say we should have a look at it, but I cannot imagine a system set up along the lines of a government grant program that is anything like what we had that would allow free market forces to apply. I am concerned that no matter what the program and no matter how good the intentions, whoever is pulling the strings will still be that politicized, that partisan in nature, will not allow the actual economy to take over, and it will still get sidetracked.