Mr. Speaker, northern Ontario communities are being devastated by mill closures, with no help from federal and provincial governments.
The latest mill in danger is St. Marys Paper in Sault Ste. Marie, which has filed for bankruptcy protection. Unless governments act, 400 employees of St. Marys will join what the Forestry Coalition says is 25,000 other northerners who have already lost their jobs.
Provincially, it is the Liberals' disastrous hydro policies harming the mills. The federal government, formerly under the Liberals and currently under the Conservatives, does not have a plan to respond to the over 200,000 manufacturing jobs lost in Ontario and Quebec.
We need a jobs first economic strategy. We need stronger sector councils and a partnership approach. And when restructuring happens, we must ensure that hard-earned pensions are not on the bargaining table. Retirees depend on their pensions. They are deferred wages of hard-working employees.
Stop killing an--