Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. He went off the beaten path and talked about his riding's unique characteristics. I am going to do the same in my speech today. People talk about economic measures in such general terms and try to fit everyone into the same box to the point that we forget how different ridings across Quebec and Canada are from one another.
Many aspects of Bill C-14 deserve to be debated, but I would like to offer a more regional perspective.
People know I love faraway places. When the Government of Canada talks about the regions, it does not mean regions like the North Shore or Gaspé. Its meaning is broader. The regional relief and recovery fund, the RRRF, is built around the Pacific region, the Atlantic region, Ontario and Quebec. Those regions are as big as countries. To put it in a nutshell, that way of designating regions is practical for the government because then it can create programs based on thinking that seems arbitrary to us, the people of the North Shore, programs that adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
I will be basing my remarks on that example, because this approach has been, and continues to be, problematic in my region in terms of what the government is offering for COVID-19 through the RRRF, for example. This one-size-fits-all approach means that the money cannot be spent, although it is absolutely needed, of course.
I want to come back to the specific needs of the regions. My colleagues from Abitibi—Témiscamingue and Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou can talk to you about their economies, which include natural resources, forestry and agriculture. People from those regions are concerned about jobs. There is also the Eastern Townships region. My colleague from Shefford might want to talk about agriculture and maple syrup—of which there is a seemingly unlimited global supply—but also about all the economic development and recovery projects happening in her region. The same is true for the Gaspé region.
I would like to look to the future. In the recovery that is just around the corner, we do not want drilling projects. There are the projects in the economic update, but there are also all the future projects that will be undertaken to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Magdalen Islands and the Gaspé want to revive the seal industry, which is a regional feature here too. There is also forestry, heritage and lighthouses to be saved in the Gaspé. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia would also be willing to talk about it.
The same is true for Charlevoix, which relies on tourism, culture, gastronomy and international tourism. My colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix could tell you all about it. There is also Montreal, with its aerospace and artificial intelligence industry. We could discuss it with my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île, who is a proud Montrealer. There is also Quebec City, the national capital of Quebec, where our National Assembly is located and where culture and tourism are also very important.
Companies like Davie would also like a little boost as part of the economic recovery. We need to put the economic statement in the context of the current needs while looking at what is ahead for us.
I could go around Quebec to showcase all its regions here. What I want to show is that it is difficult to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach when designing programs and proposing measures, because that means people will not be able to access them.
That is why I feel it is important to talk about this heterogeneity. Although we want to collaborate on projects that affect all of the regions, we need to consider regional particularities, because every region has its own issues and challenges. When you have a one-size-fits-all program that does not benefit these people, everyone ends up penalized. Every region is distinct and has its own challenges and its own aspirations for development.
Speaking of regions, I have to talk about my own. I am the member of Parliament for Manicouagan. Like all members, I am biased. My riding, all 350,000 square kilometres of it, is the most beautiful. It might as well be made up of six countries. There are six RCMs, each of which has its own very different reality. One of my RCMs is the richest in all of Quebec, yet it borders the poorest one. As a member of Parliament, it is my duty to adapt, listen, be understanding and find different solutions for each one of these six different regions that make up the North Shore.
I am very fortunate to represent this riding that includes 1,400 kilometres of waterfront, forests, mountains and fauna. It is a veritable paradise, but at the same time we are facing our own specific challenges. I would have liked to talk about these challenges and the issues that the public would like us to be working on now and in the future. Obviously these are regional issues, but I think it is important to talk about the differences between these places so that people feel listened to and so that we can work better for them, including by adapting programs such as the RRRF. It would be a win-win situation.
There are many challenges in my riding. Take, for example, indigenous issues, which I am very concerned about. In my riding, 15% of people are members of the Naskapi or Innu first nations. These people live proudly in Nitassinan. I would like to lend my voice to the first nations in my region and make their wishes known. There are many issues to address. There is the issue of language, which is currently very important for first nations. This issue is not necessarily being addressed from an economic development perspective, even though it is an economic development issue. It affects education, culture and the importance of preserving the first nations' relationship with the land, water and forest. There is also the issue of police services, the funding for which was cut. There is less and less funding for that.
There is also the issue of housing, which was mentioned earlier and which is very important in my riding. The population is growing by leaps and bounds. The issue of protection officers is also important. Communities need them because fishing is part of their development. There is also the issue of first nations health. There are so many examples that I could give, but I will stop there because my time is running out. I could keep talking about these issues for a long time.
There is also the issue of roads. In my riding there are no roads within a 400-kilometre area. We border Newfoundland and Labrador and there is a ferry. The interprovincial link was not created by the Canadian government. There has to be a way to open up the North Shore and build a road that would also benefit the people living east of us, our neighbours in Newfoundland and Labrador. It could be a development project in our area. As we saw yesterday, there may be exploratory drilling on the lower North Shore. I would prefer that a road be built so that people could travel and we could develop tourism or have more respectful development of the environment, which is what my constituents want. I could go on talking for a long time.
I talked about the regions in general, but, zooming out, my integration model would apply to all of Quebec. We have put forward our agendas for seniors, the environment and health, and I would like the government to listen to what Quebec and the regions want so it can harmonize programs and budgets according to people's needs.