Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to welcome to Ottawa the first mayor of the new Ville Saguenay, Jean Tremblay.
The challenges facing the new mayor and his municipal council are considerable. In addition to getting this new city off the ground administratively, the main challenge to the city administrators, its mayor in particular, is to ensure its long term development and that of the entire area.
The Chicoutimi-Jonquière axis has the highest rate of unemployment in the country. We must continue to move from a natural resource based economy to one that is focused on the processing of all our resources.
In that context, the mayor and his city council know that they can count on their federal MP, and on the Government of Canada as well, in meeting their many challenges.