Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology unanimously adopted a report in which all parties, including the Conservatives, made 22 recommendations. In the last economic statement, just one of those recommendations was implemented, and only halfway at that.
Yesterday, the Standing Committee on Finance passed a motion asking the Minister of Finance to implement those of the industry committee's 22 recommendations that relate to fiscal measures. Once again, I do not know whether this is unanimous or not because the Conservatives did not vote. It is strange that the Conservatives are hesitating to implement recommendations that were unanimous.
The crisis is a major concern in Quebec and Ontario. The finance committee was impressed to see such rare unanimity among unions, management, industry and cities. Everyone is saying that something must be done right now.
This is especially important because we heard repeatedly about the problem of the time lag between the rise in the Canadian dollar and energy costs and the economic consequences in terms of plant closures and job losses. People said that one, two or even three years can go by between the two. For example, the plant closures that are happening at present are due to the strength of the dollar perhaps a year ago, when it was worth $.80 American. In one, two or three years, when we see the impacts on our economy because the dollar is at $1, $1.01, $1.02, $1.03, $1.04, $1.05 and so on compared to the U.S. dollar, it will be too late. The situation will already have deteriorated.
It was unanimous. Everyone said that action was urgently needed. No allies of the Conservative government came to tell the Standing Committee on Finance that the situation was not that pressing, that manufacturers could wait until the next budget and that the minister had been right not to include any measures in his economic statement. Everyone said that the government needed to take action right away. That is why we could not support this economic statement. These measures absolutely must be included in the next budget. They should even be implemented as soon as possible.
I can guarantee the Minister of Finance that if he wants to put forward measures to help the manufacturing and forest industries in Quebec earlier than planned and he needs our cooperation in this House, we will give it to him so that we can take care of this quickly, if that is what he wants, of course.