Mr. Speaker, on January 12, as reported in Le Quotidien, the Minister of Labour said that the plan to help the manufacturing and forestry industries could only be passed as part of the budget. However, this morning, in the very same Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean paper, the Minister of Labour acknowledged that the government was forced to reverse its decision to make the $1 billion aid program conditional on the adoption of the budget because it was afraid the Bloc Québécois would reject the budget.
In these recent statements, he recognized that the Bloc Québécois is useful here in Ottawa. The pressure we put on the government caused it to backtrack. The Conservatives' plan is not enough for Quebec and my region, nor is it fair. We have won the first round, and we will work hard to keep winning.