Mr. Speaker, I am going to point out that I am happy to speak at this point in the debate on the motion by my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup. This is a timely motion, even though it was presented at the Standing Committee on Finance on November 28, 2007. That shows how the Bloc Québécois had already been involved for many months in trying to get the government to take initiatives to help these two sectors: forestry and manufacturing. I would even say many years, since this is the kind of thing we were already doing when the previous government was in power.
What makes this motion even more relevant today is that it gives us an opportunity to do something about the measure taken in relation to the $1 billion trust. Other colleagues have in fact told us that this $1 billion is too little. In fact, $1 billion is not enough to meet the crisis. It is allocated unfairly and means that the two sectors concerned are not really being supported to a level that meets the problem they are having. When we look at the $228 million in Quebec for two sectors, we see that we are getting $114 million per sector over three years. That means an average of $36 million per year. When we look at the extent of the crisis in both those sectors, that is too little.
I will illustrate my point by saying that in Quebec we are talking about 536,000 jobs and $22 billion in wages, 17% of all jobs in 2005 and nearly 21% of income from employment; that is three times more than in Alberta. In recent years, and particularly the last three years, 88,000 jobs have been lost in forestry and the sawmills. There are 230 towns and villages that depend mainly on the forestry industry and 160 towns and villages that depend exclusively on the forestry industry: nearly one half of the forestry-based communities in Canada. The forestry industry is central to how the land has been settled in Quebec. This is worth pointing out.
The manufacturing crisis, I would point out, is very serious; it looks like this: 78,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Quebec since the Conservatives came to power. It is as if our friends from Quebec, who were strutting around just now, had not seen this. As well, 21,000 jobs have been lost in the forestry industry alone, including related service industries like transportation and forestry equipment. That is half of the total job losses in Canada since April 2005. The statistics end in the summer of 2007, however, but there are situations that have worsened in a number of municipalities and my colleague, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, illustrated this clearly a moment ago.
The Conservative government is arguing that it has reduced taxes to help these industries. But when companies are not making any money and people are not working, tax reductions are useless. Where they are useful is in industries that are booming, such as the oil industry. My colleagues who were strutting around do not seem to realize that the oil companies will save $2.8 billion in taxes over the next three years.
They will save $2.8 billion over three years. That means $922 million in 2008 alone. That is what this government has done: it has taken steps to support the sectors of the economy that are working well, but it has done nothing to support industries in difficulty. That is the Conservative doctrine: support the oil industry and the war industry.
