Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my colleague referred to his region and the Asbestos area. He will agree with me that the decision the Canadian government made regarding white asbestos was the right one. If we had agreed to the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in the PIC procedure of the Rotterdam Convention, this would have created problems even bigger than those the region is facing today. I assume I have his support. At any rate, at the time, it was indicated to me verbally that everybody was in support of the decision we made. We did it to protect the region.
I must add that, when we made the decision, we kept in mind economic diversification, as we do for Quebec as a whole. In other words, one of the ways to provide for regional vulnerability is to foster economic diversification so as not to depend on one industry, but on several. With this in mind, in the asbestos region especially because of the problems linked to asbestos, we put in place a regional strategic initiative, or RSI, focussed on the needs of the Asbestos RCM.
We invested $3.3 million over two years in this RSI to foster the economic diversification I just mentioned. To date, a score of jobs have been created. Some 20 jobs have been saved, and we are currently working with Serres du Saint-Laurent inc. to create 54 more jobs.
I would like to know if in fact, regardless of political rhetoric, my colleague supports the decision of the Government of Canada not to include chrysotile asbestos to the list of products under the Rotterdam Convention, and also if he supports the regional strategic initiative, which, by the way, was set up in close cooperation with the industry and the provincial government.