Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):

Mr. Speaker, of course I am very much aware of the Environment 2000 Program. I think the Hon. Member is aware of the recent addition to funding which was announced for the program earlier this month, or at the end of last month. I am not responsible for the administration of the program. It is in the hands of my colleague, the Minister of the Environment. I can neither attest to the accuracy of the statements of the Hon. Member nor can I tell him how much funding remains in the program. However, I will be happy to forward his representations to the Minister of the Environment who no doubt will be in touch to provide him with accurate information as soon as possible.

Oral Questions

Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):

Mr. Speaker, I am really a little startled by the Hon. Member's question. He should know-perhaps he does, and does not care to say it directly-that there have been continuing meetings between the Ministers of Forestry at the provincial level and their federal counterpart. Indeed, as a result of those meetings a federal forest strategy was brought forward and was discussed with the provinces. We are in the process of signing individual agreements with each of the provinces to focus on reforestation and silvaculture problems and responses.

The fact of the matter, as he should know, is that in his own province it is the failure of the provincial Government to support those activities, and indeed the withdrawal of the provincial Government from some programs such as the Employment Bridging Assistance Program, which have undermined those efforts. There has been a continuing, firm, and constant effort on the part of the federal Government to respond exactly to those problems within the framework of the forest strategy which has already been developed. His criticisms, and I hope he would make them with great vigour, should be directed toward provincial authorities in his own province, not toward this side of the House.

Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure from the Hon. Member's question whether he is talking about the Government of Manitoba or the Government of British Columbia.

Mr. Roberts:

He is talking about the Government of Manitoba. I would like to assure him that our programs show no particular discrimination against the Government of Manitoba, or indeed against Manitobans. I do not have the figures with me, but a couple of months ago, when the matter was very much under discussion in this House, we reviewed the over-all percentage of allocations and compared them with the levels of unemployment that existed over the past year. We found that when looking at all of the job-creation programs of the Government of Canada, the over-all percentage of allocations roughly reflected the percentage of unemployment, with some discrepancies which I think can be accounted for by the fact that some provincial Governments have more resources with which to tackle unemployment within their own provinces than others. In effect, there was a parallel allocation which pretty well reflected the unemployment percentage levels. If I can find the information easily, I will bring the figures up to date and forward them to the Hon. Member.

Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman is quite correct. This is a very serious question. I am appalled at the lighthearted reaction of the Conservative Members. I would like to assure the hon. gentleman that I will look into his recommendation very seriously. I cannot give him an absolute commitment at this point.