Mr. Speaker, I will have to talk quickly.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the throne speech. Despite all of the great things in the throne speech, and many of my colleagues have talked about them, I want to reserve my comments for the issue of urban and rural Canada.
One of the basic things that the throne speech recognizes, indeed, that the government recognizes and which the opposition has not even begun to think about, is that the success of this nation, the success of Canada, the success of our people, is based on the understanding that we need both a strong urban and a strong rural Canada, that if we are to be successful both of our component parts need to be strong. If we look at the reasons why and look at the contributions that rural Canada makes to this nation in employment, in what it adds to our trade surplus and in the amount of the GDP, they are all significant. The reality is that if we are to be successful in urban Canada, if we are to be successful in rural Canada, both parts need to be strong.
One of the things I was pleased to see in the Speech from the Throne was that a number of issues that involve rural Canadians were talked about directly. Those individual and particular challenges that we as rural Canadians face, in terms of geography, population density and the cyclical nature of our economy, are dealt with in the Speech from the Throne.
The member for Malpeque talked about some of them. For instance, in terms of the agricultural policy framework and related measures, there was that announcement the Prime Minister made in June, the $5.2 billion, which was to be implemented and put forward for the benefit of rural Canadians and indeed for the benefit of all Canadians.
Yes, the throne speech talked about something very critical for our rural members, and that is our regional development agencies, but it talked about more than just the regional development agencies. It talked about the need to focus programming for the knowledge-based economy, to make sure that the innovations we are talking about as a society are also applicable to rural Canadians and rural businesses so that rural citizens have an opportunity to participate in a knowledge-based economy.
The throne speech talked about some of the issues of globalization. It talked about some of the trade issues. The hon. member for Malpeque talked about this as well. It said that the government has in the past dealt with and will continue in the future to deal with those trade-distorting policies that are having a harmful impact on our agricultural industry. It talked about our softwood lumber industry and the need for us to deal with the Americans on this issue. That commitment is clearly in the Speech from the Throne. That is important for rural Canadians and rural Canadian communities that depend on agriculture and that depend on forestry.
It talked about a national infrastructure program, a ten-year national infrastructure program. This is critical for rural Canadians. We need to have the basic infrastructure built into our communities. We need to have the water, the sewers and the roads, the types of networks within our rural communities that would allow us to fully participate in the economy of Canada.
I was pleased to see that long-term commitment made in the Speech from the Throne, because I travel through rural Canada and I have an opportunity to talk to municipal leaders about their relationship with government, their need for government to provide them with the tools in order to pursue their development activities in a way that makes sense for their local communities. They talk about the need for infrastructure, whether that be traditional infrastructure or telecommunications infrastructure.
I was so pleased, and I know that members were because several of them were with me, when we made the announcement of BRAN, which will help us ensure that all rural Canadians have an opportunity to access high-speed broadband Internet so that those communities can have access to important things such as health care, education and lifelong learning in a competitive business environment.
I was pleased with the Speech from the Throne, and I know my colleagues were as well, when we saw the commitment to those important projects that we want to see take place in rural Canada. The Voisey's Bay project that will take place in Newfoundland and Labrador is a project that is going to create real economic activity in rural Canada and real jobs for rural Canadians and improve the standard of living and the quality of life for Canadians in rural Canada.
Our commitment to work in northern Canada to ensure that those gas pipelines have an opportunity to be developed and to provide economic opportunities for those north of 60 is a commitment that was in the Speech from the Throne and is one that rural Canadians applaud fully as they see that taking place.
Housing is a critical issue in rural Canada, as it is in urban Canada. Concerns with housing may manifest themselves differently in a rural context compared to an urban context. They oftentimes do. I know that the Alliance Party in trying to come to grips with this, which is not happening because they do not come to grips with this or any other policy, quite frankly, but in fact we see a policy in place to allow communities to deal with housing issues.
In summary, the Speech from the Throne is great for all Canadians and it is particularly good for those Canadians who live in rural Canada.