Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to and discuss the implications of private member's Bill C-309.
The bill proposes, at a significant cost to the taxpayer, to create a new federal agency with its own deputy minister and with its own bureaucracy to administer economic development programs exclusively to northern Ontario. Bill C-309, in essence, aims to create an agency to do what FedNor, a program administered by Industry Canada, is already doing and doing quite well.
Communities and rural areas in northern Ontario continue to face challenges that affect the stability and the development of their economy, both in the short and in the long term. Some of these challenges include: geographic isolation from large urban markets to the south; limited telecommunications and transportation infrastructure; static or declining population; a high youth out-migration rate; lower than average employment growth; and limited ability and capacity to respond to the current global economic slowdown.
This great part of our country certainly deserves the support of Canada's government, and I am proud to say that FedNor has been leading the way for years.
Since its inception in 1987, FedNor has been operating successfully within Industry Canada. On a daily basis, FedNor staff work with a diverse client base in an effort to build a stronger and more prosperous northern Ontario. These clients include business leaders and professional groups in the areas of tourism, transportation, telecommunications, resource industries, small business, health research and education.
It appears that the intention of my hon. colleague, the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming in tabling this bill is to ensure that the government will provide the support that northern Ontario needs to continue to thrive. Today, FedNor is providing this support and it is doing so quite successfully, I might add.
To understand the implications of the bill, we need to turn the clock back just a bit.
In 1987 the federal economic development initiative for northern Ontario, FedNor, was created to serve the economic development needs of the northern part of this province. It was established as a program within Industry Canada, within its regional operations sector, where it still remains today.
It was in 1995, some eight years later, when Industry Canada, through FedNor, became responsible for administering the community futures program across rural Ontario.
In other regions, the community futures program is administered by the three existing regional development agencies in Canada: the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Western Economic Diversification and the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec.
What makes the community futures program unique is that each community futures organization counts on the expertise of volunteer boards made up of local residents who bring a variety of expertise to the table.
The community futures program builds on the philosophy that local residents are best positioned to make decisions about the future of their communities. The program has become a driving force for business and for community development across the province of Ontario.
We move some seven years later to 2004 when FedNor took on the responsibility of administering the new eastern Ontario development program. The success of this program can, in part, be attributed to the excellent administration and flexible management structure from which FedNor currently benefits by being part of Industry Canada.
In addition to the responsibilities I have mentioned, FedNor also administers funding for the economic development of official language minority communities in Ontario. This has involved coordinating consultations with our official language minority communities to identify gaps and to identify needs.
FedNor has taken a lead role in promoting the vitality of these communities by working with its community futures partners to bring about service improvements. These efforts are helping to ensure that the community futures development corporations have the support they need to meet the official language needs of their communities.
In the past, FedNor has administered other initiatives in Ontario,on behalf of the Government of Canada, such as the softwood industry community economic adjustment initiative.