Madam Speaker, I do not have a lot of time left, but we could have talked, for example, about the environment of pulp and paper companies or others that have both the federal and the provincial standards. Sometimes the higher standards are federal and sometimes they are Quebec's. If a criminal offence is involved, the weight is in favour of the federal standard. Conversely, if it is a civil matter, the weight is in favour of the provincial standard. It is a total administrative mess.
However, as regards what my colleague from Charlevoix was saying recently, a well-intentioned individual working for the federal government at home with the Department of Human Resources Development said to the stakeholders “The regional office analyzes that”. I knew that by “regional office” she meant Montreal. But the people in my region, when they heard “regional office” understood it was managed in Rouyn-Noranda, because that is where the regional office is.
So at one point I spoke up and said “We will clarify one thing. In Ottawa, when you say 'region', you mean Quebec entirely. If you say Abitibi—Témiscamingue, you are referring to—” I would not even use an adjective for fear of having it used against me. For us, Abitibi-Témiscamingue is our region. We would like the government to think this way.
What sets us apart is the number of mines we have. There were tax incentives, which still exist, but have been cut considerably by the federal government, which led to a lot of exploration. Northern Quebec still has extraordinary potential for mining exploration, but the reduction in the worth of natural resources, particularly metals, and the Bre-X crisis and other incidents, have discouraged exploration.
The fact that the federal government did not restore that program in its original form was very prejudicial to our region. When that flow-through shares program was at its peak, unemployment in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region was at 7%. However, from the federal government's perspective, a tax measure that applies to just one region of Quebec clearly does not have enough of an impact to justify an extended program.
This is unfortunate because that initiative was specifically targeted to the needs of our region. I could list many more that do not specifically meet regional needs. It is not the economic development agencies, which often do promotional work, that identify these needs. These agencies exist primarily to sell Ottawa to people in the regions, not to take regional issues and get the federal government to do something about them. There may exceptions, but this is how it works in my region.