Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to tell my colleague that, with respect to older workers, this is a growing problem for us that reflects the aging of the general Canadian population.
There was once a program, called POWA, to help those workers. Given the increase in the available financial resources in the last few budgets, it would be appropriate, before even considering the creation of new programs and new approaches in order to discover new methods of job creation, to use these surpluses so as to enable workers to qualify either for retraining or training in a new craft.
Coming now to the second question, which relates to the fact that Quebec may not have supported the Conservatives with respect to oil and gas extraction in the province of Newfoundland, there is one thing that must be acknowledged. We, in Quebec, have chosen, particularly in the field of energy, a source that is considered “cleaner”. We have invested billions of dollars in hydroelectricity. We are currently investing billions in wind power.
This means that, as of that time, we had to assume that, having invested so much in clean energy, we were suddenly in a situation where we were again making financial concessions that could ultimately turn out to be detrimental for us. Indeed, if Newfoundland were to obtain exemptions for the royalties it could receive for those areas, we would consider this a kind of misuse of our contribution.