I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for listening to me with interest.
This is what worries parliamentarians. We know no modern country can make progress without helping scientific research. The member for Chicoutimi, whom I salute, is nodding in agreement; he knows that, in his riding as in ours, there are bright minds. But the private sector cannot always be there for them, because it takes equipment, infrastructures and money. “No money, no candy”, as our friends in Ontario say, and “no fun”.
We are welcoming this initiative to spread scientific research across the country instead of building a huge structure at some street corner, in Hamilton or Toronto, where scientific research would be concentrated.
Thanks to modern means of communication such as Internet, scientific research in a given field could be done by someone in Chicoutimi who would be connected to colleagues in Calgary, Mississauga or, of course, Chambly. Scientists could work and collaborate from their homes or their offices in the regions.
The strength of this bill, if it is implemented properly, is in networking. But if everything is in Toronto, if all the lines and wires are converging on Toronto, the bill will have a negative impact on the other provinces.
Research is important. We can focus our economic development according to our skills and expertise. That is the problem for all regions, except Ontario. In Canada, and this is a major mistake that was repeated thousands of times, economic development is invariably based on technical knowledge and expertise. If that expertise is concentrated in one area, the resulting economic development will benefit that specific area.
This is why, in the past, research on the seabed, marine species or fishery resources was conducted in the maritime provinces. Regional economy was based on the skills and knowledge that existed in a given region. The same research could not have been conducted in the central provinces, where agriculture is predominant.
When research is not based on raw materials, but on technical knowledge such as the breaking of the atom—