Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech. He represents a region that made it very clear during the election that it wanted the Conservative government to take a different approach. The member himself referred to the cuts affecting regional development.
However, one thing is clear, and I find this remarkable: the current government ignored the results of the recent election. The Bloc Québécois' subamendment—which I will read quickly—states that we will be voting against the Speech from the Throne because “it does not respond to the consensus in Quebec respecting, for instance, the legislation on young offenders, the repatriation to Quebec of powers over culture and communications, the elimination of the federal spending power and the maintenance of the existing system of securities regulation”.
The Conservative machine continued to steamroll over all those issues, as though there had been no election in Quebec. Thus, this shows a degree of contempt for democracy in the throne speech and we hope the House will adopt our subamendment. It would serve to correct the Speech from the Throne.
The hon. member raised an important issue when he mentioned the cuts made to regional development. One good sign is the fact that the minister responsible before the election is no longer here and there is a new minister. We hope he will have a more open mind. Indeed, the cuts in this area definitely had a negative impact on Rimouski, as they did on the Lower St. Lawrence. We saw the same thing with PÔLE Québec Chaudière-Appalaches, in the Quebec City area.
We are heading into a recession. The Prime Minister said so yesterday. He added the word “technical” to try to play down the situation. Nevertheless, he acknowledged this reality, although, during the election campaign, he denied any possibility of a recession.
Now that the recession has been acknowledged and active measures are required, the first concrete action for regional development in the short term should be to ensure that these organizations are once again able to step in to support our regional economies, should it not?