Madam Speaker, the hon. member made some wonderful remarks. At one particular point she did refer to the cod fishery, which is an issue dear to my heart.
I remember I was in first year university at Queen's when the moratorium was declared. It was quite a shock to everyone, because Newfoundlanders have such an emotional connection to the fishery and its importance to our economy. Then of course the population dropped by almost 80,000.
The member raised an issue regarding how the retraining worked. The retraining might not have worked for all people in the fishery but it certainly trained a generation of young Newfoundlanders and Labradorians into industries that did not exist. They went off to other parts of the country and did quite well. Some 80,000 of them went elsewhere and are doing quite well in various fields, including in the Internet, working in Silicon Valley, or Toronto, or Boston, or wherever else their skills may have taken them.
I would like the member to comment on how important it is to make sure that the folks in Oshawa are provided with opportunities in their communities so they can continue to maintain their community roots with the people they have grown up with, which is so important to all of us.