Mr. Speaker, I know that I will not have much time since we are winding up debate on this motion, which is exceedingly important to the Bloc Québécois, but above all for the regions of Quebec reeling under the full force of the forestry crisis. I represent one of those regions. In the 1960s, there were 45 sawmills and three pulp and paper mills in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region. Today there is only one pulp and paper mill and, at most, 20 sawmills still active.
We all knew that a forestry crisis was coming and that the government needed to provide appropriate measures to deal with the crisis. This government was elected two years ago and for two years we have been calling on it to prepare to deal with an unmanageable crisis—the forestry crisis—and to develop appropriate measures. Since the government is incapable of producing such measures, we decided to offer some solutions.
Through the standing committee responsible for this issue, we submitted 11 recommendations. I do not want to go further on that point because I know that I do not have much time remaining. However, I do want to speak about the famous $1 billion that will be held in trust and of which the Bloc will be in favour.
Since October, the Conservatives have been coming into my riding to say how concerned they are about the forestry crisis. A Conservative was even elected in the riding of Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, after saying that he would personally deal with this crisis. In my opinion, this member was practically elected on the basis of misleading statements because he is not the one who made the government change its mind. It has taken 10, 15, 20, 50, even 100 members to explain to this government—and especially to the 11 Conservative members from Quebec—that it understood nothing, did not listen to anything and did not want to hear anything. We told the Conservatives that the crisis would strike them with full force.
The Bloc will vote in favour of this trust. Nobody on the other side, especially not the 11 Conservative members elected from Quebec, can say that the Bloc is useless in Ottawa, quite the contrary.