Madam Chairman, the hon. member is right, because sometimes it takes three or three and a half months to get an answer. We currently have projects in the regions with universities, but we must wait three months, a month and a half or two months in Montreal, before going to Ottawa and having to wait for another month and a half. It is important to realize that people in the regions want decisions to be made immediately.
I know one thing. If I need $10,000, I go to a bank and if the manager has not given me an answer a week later, I go elsewhere. If we do not get an immediate answer from the bank manager, we find another solution.
The hon. member is right. Perhaps the government should set up CFDCs or an agency to promote economic development for resource regions. Ministers come to the regions, they see things firsthand. However senior public officials do not always do so. They do not always come and they do not know the reality. They should come and spend a month in my region, in Rouyn-Noranda, Val-d'Or or in the area, to see what it is like.
Some do come. I know Jocelyn Jacques, who is from Montreal's CED. He visits the regions and he sees how things are going.
It should not take 30 days to make decisions. Business people want action. It takes three months. This is why, if we have a development agency, we can have it. Our neighbour, Fednor, is a mere 400 feet from the Rouyn-Noranda city limits.
As Richard Desjardins says in his song, they are 400 feet away, but we should get the same thing to develop the forestry sector and all the other sectors, together with the James Bay Cree and the Inuit. They are our partners, but there must be some action in the short term, not in the long term, not during the next election campaign, not in three or four years, but in the short term.
The hon. member is right. A decision will have to be made as quickly as possible regarding economic projects, to help our economy back home.