Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for the question, because this is extremely important.
Right now, as we speak, the federal government is looking around this region for extra office space. It is projecting ahead. It is a good idea to plan ahead--very smart.
At the same time, it is looking to sell off assets. It has already done this little ruse when it sold off government buildings, buildings that we need, meaning that taxpayers have to lease the assets and have to pay. The simplest way to put this is to ask whether we would rather own or rent. What the government is doing, has done and is contemplating doing right now is similar to selling off our homes and then having to rent them back. It looks good in the short run because we have some money in our pockets. In the long run, it makes no sense at all.
The problem with the government is that it only looks at the short term to gain advantage. In this case it means putting an asset on the books to make things look good. In five or ten years, unless we do away with government entirely and no longer need buildings anyway, which is maybe the real plan, we need to have a place for our public service to work. I would rather have a government asset that we own than one that we have to sell and then rent back. It makes no sense. It is not good economics. It is not good management.