Mr. Speaker, with the recent acquisition of Davie Industries by the Syntek-Transnational consortium and the current negotiations on the possibility of management and employees buying into the company, the Lévis shipyard is off to a new start.
As justification of this acquisition, the new owners stressed Davie's excellent international reputation, based primarily on the quality of its workers.
Anyone familiar with shipbuilding knows that Davie is ranked in the top five in the world, as far as engineering is concerned. It is the best builder of oil rigs in Canada.
What is still missing, however, is a true federal shipbuilding policy to enable our companies to hold their own against foreign competition.
Now that the legal matters surrounding Davie has been settled, I wish its new directors good luck, for the sake of the workers and the economies of Quebec City and the Chaudière—Appalaches region.