Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member raised that point. The $170 million allotted to forestry in the budget is mostly money for research and marketing. That is certainly welcome, but far more of a concern is the plight of our forestry families in our single industry towns that have been decimated by five and more years of recession in this sector. More than 38,000 good paying jobs have been lost in forestry during this period and tens of thousands more jobs are likely to be lost in the coming year and we hear of new losses almost daily. It was announced today that a forestry company in Thunder Bay will go into receivership tomorrow. AbitibiBowater, one of the largest, is now being faced with what we hope is not a permanent shutdown. It is a situation that is continuing to steamroll. Many of those workers have spent their entire lives working for one employer and now find themselves out of work for the first time.
Therefore, when I speak about the failure of the budget to help the forestry sector, I mean that the budget does nothing to help our forestry families and communities. There is no direct assistance for laid off forestry workers. Where there is some assistance, such as the community adjustment fund, our forestry communities must get in line with mining, agriculture, fishing and manufacturing dependent communities. It is simply not enough.