Mr. Speaker, since yesterday, workers and citizens of Chambord have been occupying the Agropur plant to prevent this business that has closed from dismantling plant equipment.
Until recently, this plant was processing millions of litres of locally produced milk. As a result of an administrative decision, all processing activities were transferred outside the Lac-Saint-Jean region.
A region such as ours relies for its existence on its capacity to process locally the raw materials it produces. What Agropur did in the case of the Chambord plant shows that resource regions are being gutted to benefit large centres.
Enough is enough. The Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean will not fall once again victim to a company which, following a takeover, will take milk produced in our region and process it elsewhere.
I wholeheartedly support the people who are occupying the Agropur plant in Chambord. Agropur must not be allowed to take away from us what is ours.