Hon. Percy E. Downe: Minister, I have a follow-up question. In your first answer, you spoke about various agencies located in Atlantic Canada. However, the only national headquarters of any department is Veterans Affairs, and that’s located in Charlottetown.

I would suggest for your consideration that a first step for decentralization of federal government national departments would be to move the national headquarters of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which is currently located on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise office tower on Kent Street in downtown Ottawa — where they cannot see a fisher or the impact of their policies as far as their eyes can see — to Sydney, Cape Breton, home of the Canadian Coast Guard College.

Will you request a study of this opportunity to provide secure, well-paying federal government jobs to all Atlantic provinces so they can enjoy the same benefit that Prince Edward Island currently enjoys with the national headquarters of Veterans Affairs Canada in Charlottetown? That is, over 1,200 permanent jobs are now located in P.E.I., and there are summer student jobs and contract employees who provide professional services to veterans and their families. The pandemic has shown that remote work can be done from anywhere. Why not move more of these national headquarters, jobs and payroll to Atlantic Canada?

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Minister, thank you for being here. I hear nothing but positive comments about the work you are doing as Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. It’s in that capacity that I want to ask you a question.

One of your duties regarding ACOA is to “. . . promote . . . long-term job creation and economic development in Atlantic Canada . . . .” To that end, will you be instructing ACOA officials to look at increasing regional employment opportunities by reversing the concentration of federal government jobs in the greater Ottawa area? Historically, only one third of federal jobs were based in the greater Ottawa area, but that has grown in recent years to almost one half.

Given the success many years ago of moving the national headquarters of Veterans Affairs Canada to Charlottetown, bringing some 1,600 employees and an annual payroll of over $120 million, can you, as minister, push for more federal departments to relocate their national headquarters to the other provinces of Atlantic Canada?