Madam Chairman, I would like to make a comment to the secretary of state, and then to ask my colleague from Jonquière a question.
I agree with what he said. This is what the government does in its dealings with communities. In the case of the federal government in Quebec, there are two structures which affect regional development.
Of course, there are also ministers with a sectoral involvement, but the main tools are the Community Futures Development Corporations and Canada Economic Development.
Canada Economic Development Canada does not have the approach he mentioned, an approach based on co-operation, where the community takes the decisions. Canada Economic Development Canada produces a program thought of and made in Ottawa, Montreal or elsewhere for regional development. That is a problem.
There is a difference between the structure in place in Ontario and the one in Quebec. FedNor does not operate the same way as Canada Economic Development. The later is much more centralized.
Therefore, I hope that the member will pressure his colleague responsible for regional development in Quebec and tell him that this does not respond exactly to our needs at this time and that we need more flexibility and a model which goes in the direction you mentioned, a model which comes from the grassroots.
This is not exactly the way Canada Economic Development operates. In programming, any project of more than $100,000 has to be approved at a senior level. There are practical problems with that.
I think that the secretary of state is acting in good faith, I am even sure of it, but I hope that we will see some changes in this regard.
I have a short comment for the member for Jonquière, whom I congratulate on her speech. There is something I forgot to mention earlier, and I would like to know what she thinks about it.
Often, there are difficulties in the regions. For instance, the Department of Natural Resources or other departments, such as Agriculture Canada, are fairly large. Often we would like to have a few more researchers or those people described as public servants. We would like them to be a little more present in the regions, or for there to be more partnership, often with our teaching institutions. We would like these people to work in our communities. This would enhance co-operation between the community and the departments.
I do not know whether this feeling exists in her region. In my region, we would like more employees of these large departments to be based in the region, to live and breathe a little more of regional reality, rather than always having to wander all over the place to convince people of their efficiency.
We would like to have more public servants based in the region, while reporting to the administrative structures, but a little more in touch with what is going on in the community.
There are a few agreements, but we would like to see them extended. We find it a bit frustrating to be one of the major producers in the mining sector and not to have more people from the Department of Natural Resources assigned to our region, for example, or based in our region.
I am sure that the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik will agree with me.