Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Lévis—Bellechasse who has an impressive background and brings a lot of experience to our caucus.
To answer his question I will say that yes, we often see consensus in the community but the government will give all kind of excuses to justify its refusal to participate. Sometimes, it says it is because of its program constraints, sometimes because it will not get enough visibility or that it will not be the main stakeholder in a project.
When there is consensus and the region says that a project is good, I do not see why the federal government would say that it is bad and that it will not get involved. Who but those who are affected by a problem are in the best position to plan their own development, to nurture that development?
Let us take a conflict like lumber for example. We have been asking for two or three years for a loan guarantee program to really help businesses. We also asked for the payment of legal costs. We proposed a plan to help forest industries because their situation is a tragedy. Two days ago, Tembec announced the closure of four plants. Will the government wait for the sector to be completely destroyed before doing something?