Mr. Speaker, I want to continue to explain to the people of Quebec as a whole the action the Canadian government has taken.
As I said before we just intervened with Inno-centre, to the tune of $4.5 million; this is very critical and very important for the greater Montréal area, since we are talking about action targeted at the pre-start-up level in the high technology sector, in other words the knowledge-based economy.
Of course, the people opposite do not want to hear or understand that the Canadian government plays a major role in Quebec. I want to outline the Canadian government's action strategy for the greater Montreal area, a strategy that was introduced in 1996 and involved the intervention of Team Canada as a whole in the greater metropolitan area.
Today the results of this strategy are remarkable. We are talking about close to 1,800 projects which have been approved since 1996 under our strategy for Montreal. These investments have a leverage effect and total more than $3 billion. The contribution of Economic Development Canada alone, my department when it comes to economic development, is in the order of $785 million. In terms of jobs created or maintained by this, we are talking of almost 20,000 jobs in the greater metropolitan area.
The Canadian government is proud of what it is doing in Quebec and in greater Montreal.