Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Cumberland—Colchester for his motion. Whenever we are concerned about rural Canada, a motion is always appropriate and always pertinent. I am sure his wife Rosemary is most pleased with his fine comments today.
I would like to first acknowledge that the census reports show that we are experiencing a shift in our population. It is not a simple thing to analyze because our country is made up of many different regions with unique characteristics and with a unique set of large and small communities. It is not just cities and the rest of Canada.
When we leave the boundaries of our major urban centres, we do not find a homogeneous rural area from that boundary and beyond. It is very different when we look at what is happening around our cities, what is happening further out in what we call the heartland areas and what is happening beyond that, in what we might refer to as our remote areas, such as the area that I come from in northern Ontario and beyond into the Northwest Territories and so forth.
I would like to just take a moment to say that we have a minister who is responsible for rural development in Canada. The minister has worked very hard to raise the profile with our urban neighbours. We need a strong rural Canada to have a strong country. I would like to emphasize that it is not a matter of urban versus rural. It never has been and never should be. It is a partnership. Each recognizes in the other that a healthy urban society is good for the country and a healthy rural society is good for the country.
I would like to just comment briefly on immigration. I have discussed with some of my mayors and reeves the notion of attracting immigrants from other parts of the world to our rural areas. For instance, the member for Cumberland—Colchester would like to see immigrants come to his neighbourhood.
He mentioned a pilot project in Truro. I was most intrigued about that, and I hope he will keep the House apprised of those developments. I am encouraged, and I am not surprised, that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is supporting that initiative to see if there are new ways and some different thinking that can be brought to the challenge of attracting immigrants to our non-metropolitan areas. I appreciate that he has raised the idea that Truro is trying to attract a group of maybe five families from one area of one country. It did not work out regarding the five families in Korea but that it is an excellent idea. That and many other ideas need to be tried.
I think he will find great support for good, new ideas that might help bring immigrants to the parts of the country that are not used to having immigrants come in large numbers. Our population decline is a complex thing but we need to have our share of new Canadians who will choose to make Canada their home. They invariably bring good skills and great economic wealth to the nation.
I would rather focus the rest of my time on the economic development side of things. In northern Ontario, in the area I represent, economic development goes right down to the grassroots. I noticed in the member's motion, and it may have been inadvertent, that it mentions that the federal government should have economic development strategies and programs for the provinces. I do not think he meant that we should tell the provinces what to do. By way of clarification, I think he really means that the federal government should show, by leadership and by example, its interest in economic development in the different regions of the country.
I can tell member that the government, while always willing to try new ideas, has already put in place numerous excellent measures to help local communities, where the ideas should come from, to develop good ideas. I am sure the member does not mean to suggest that bureaucrats or politicians in Ottawa or Toronto should tell local communities what is best for them.
In the case of northern Ontario, FedNor, and ACOA in his area in the Atlantic provinces, try to promote local partnerships to allow good local ideas to be supported in the hopes that the best ideas will grow and become those economic generators that we need.
I would just point out the many things that the government has already done. The Canadian rural partnership program, with a $55 million investment, has done a lot to promote dialogue, to promote the information sharing and to promote the sharing of best practices at the local levels in rural Canada.
Under the telecommunications initiative, the government has committed to ensuring that broadband telecommunication is available to all of our communities by 2005 so that every community will have a door to the world when it comes to communications and access to the best of medicine and education. It will give our local businesses in those communities a chance to share in the worldwide marketplace.
The government not only continues to support our regional economic development agencies, but in many cases has improved that support and has allowed those agencies to be more flexible and more able to adapt to regional realities. In particular, I know in my area, and I would say in all areas in the country, our local Community Futures Development Corporations, our CFDCs, have done a marvellous job in ensuring that local ideas are supported.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the volunteers who make up the boards of these CFDCs. They provide the kinds of insights at the local level that we could never find from far away places. We appreciate that, and the federal government's support through the regional agencies for those local programs which is absolutely essential.
Under the Canada provincial-territorial infrastructure program, the Government of Canada recognizes the importance of improving infrastructure, not just in our urban centres but across the country, reaching out to the smallest of our villages and hamlets. In northern Ontario there are hundreds of communities. In my own area there are 40 to 60 smaller communities. Without the federal government becoming involved, they would never hope to improve their local infrastructures which are needed to create and foster a local environment of economic health and hope. We hope that in the future our young people will want to come home after they have received their college or university educations or after they have spent some years working somewhere else. We hope they will feel they can go home to their rural areas, their rural homes and build something for the benefit of all.
I could go on listing the many things that the government has done and continues to do. I will not even mention the initiatives to support renewable energies under the tax regime. Many of these initiatives emanate from rural Canada.
I want to underline that rural Canada is not a homogeneous set of villages dotting the country as soon as we leave the boundaries of a city. It is made up of generally three categories of communities.
First are those areas that are adjacent to metropolitan areas and that benefit from a spillover effect which is good for them.
Second are those communities that are in the heartland. The populations in this area are more or less stable. They suffer the challenges of competing, like all the communities do, with larger cities.
We really must recognize that they too differ from the third category, our more remote regions like northern Ontario, the far north of Canada, the northern areas of our prairie provinces and of Labrador and northern Quebec. These areas are so far from our metropolitan centres that the distance really counts for a lot when it comes to economic development.
I will conclude by thanking the member for Cumberland—Colchester for putting forward the motion. He does us all a service by making sure that this place recognizes the importance of rural Canada to the nation. That is indeed where this country started from. If we lose sight of the importance of rural Canada we will in fact lose sight of what it is to be a nation.
I am sure that rural Canada will continue to be strong and will carry this country into the future forever.