Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate. The New Democratic Party of Canada is pleased to read into the record the commitment that we made to Premier Williams in the run-up to the last election.
The premier had requested the party leaders to respond in writing to the situation facing Newfoundland and Labrador, and we were very pleased to respond. We may very well have been the first to respond. I simply want to read into the official record what we said at the time. It is a position that we continue to hold today:
The NDP supports Newfoundland and Labrador receiving 100% of its offshore oil and gas revenues to make it the ‘principal beneficiary’ of these resources based on the principles set forth in the Atlantic Accord. As I will repeat later in this letter, this view is part and parcel of the NDP's strong view that Canada needs a national energy strategy that not only corrects such fiscal imbalances regarding resource extraction, but also best positions our country for a future under the Kyoto Protocol and beyond.
Certainly, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador should have an ownership stake in offshore oil and gas developments as equity partners. We would expect that an ownership stake would be a pre-condition of all future developments. The Government of Canada, as an equity partner in Hibernia, has already recouped its investment and should transfer its 8.5% equity share of the Hibernia project to the Province.
We were the only party to make that commitment. We were responding to the very persuasive arguments put forward by the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador, Jack Harris.
When it comes to equalization, I will quote further from our letter dated April 25 to the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador:
Newfoundland and Labrador has the lowest personal per capita income, the highest unemployment rate, and the lowest labour participation rate in Canada. Federal government transfers to the province are shrinking. The NDP supports a renewed equalization formula that is based on a ten-province standard that would increase fairness and provide for greater equality across Canada.
The elimination of Established Program Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan was extremely destructive to health care, post-secondary education and social service programs across the country and has led to greater inequality between individuals and provinces. We agree that restoring transfers to the 1994-95 levels, adjusted for inflation, would be an extremely important step in restoring federal funding to these important national objectives.
There are a couple of aspects of this position which I would like to speak about today. First of all is the importance of making a commitment and then sticking to it after we have asked the voters to judge us on the basis of what we promised. That is why we put our commitment in writing in detail.
The people of Newfoundland and Labrador in particular have a reason to be skeptical about the positions taken by national leaders, particularly given the experience of the last number of years under the Liberal government. All kinds of promises were made at election time, then only to be broken. We have seen a list of broken promises from the Liberal Party which is so long that if we were to try to enumerate them, it would consume not only the remainder of my speaking time but probably the speaking time of most other members in this debate today.
What we are speaking about today is a broken promise, a promise made in the desperate rush to try to secure votes by the Prime Minister during the election, a promise to which he did not commit in writing, despite the request of the premier for him to put his commitment in writing. We now see why the commitment was never made in writing. There was never any intention to follow through. There was an intention to leave the impression that the Prime Minister was making the same commitment that, for example, our party was making, so that the voters would be confused or lulled into a false sense of security that if only the big red machine were elected, the various commitments made in the election would be honoured.
In fact what we have seen here is a case of false advertising of the worst and most disgusting kind. It elevated the hopes of people with the lowest incomes, people who are dealing with desperate situations, a province which is struggling with a huge financial challenge with the resources that are unavailable to some other provinces.
It elevated their hopes so that they would cast a ballot hoping that there would finally be some redress for their province and that they would finally be able to secure some of the benefits from the resources that lay offshore. A tragic slap in the face has been administered to them for the trust that they offered in the election with their votes. That in many ways is the most egregious element of the issue we are discussing today.
On the question of equalization, I spoke this morning with Jack Harris, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador. He made a number of very simple and straightforward points. He told me that if Newfoundland and Labrador were ever to be able to achieve or exceed the five province average or any other multi-province average for this federation, there would be dancing in the streets in Newfoundland and Labrador.
There is this notion that somehow we have to protect ourselves against the eventuality a number of years down the road that Newfoundland and Labrador would suddenly be wallowing in billions of dollars of resources and would simply sit on it and never even consider the issue of equalization adjustments in the future. That Newfoundland and Labrador would never participate in any discussions and would adopt some sort of arrogant attitude with regard to that is completely inconsistent with what we know about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, their community spirit and their desire to play a role in Canada. Frankly, it stands as an insult. It is a profound insult particularly taken against the fact that they were made a promise and now that promise is being broken.
No wonder there is anger among the communities right across Newfoundland and Labrador today as we debate this matter. They are simply looking for fairness and justice and to be a full part of this federation in every way, so that the quality of life of their children and seniors can be addressed in the same way as it is addressed elsewhere in the country. Right now that is denied and all the evidence points to that fact.
What we need to do in Parliament is address inequalities that exist in our country. We need to take a look at the nature and extent of those inequalities and propose solutions. That is what we in the New Democratic Party did. We sat down and looked at the situation being faced by Newfoundland and Labrador. We looked at its resources. Just by virtue of the fact that they are offshore, the federal government is able to take 70% of the royalty revenue from those resources. What is fair about that?
Elsewhere in Canada if the resources are underneath the land mass, of course there is a much more significant revenue flow. It is for that reason the Atlantic accord was put together: to recognize these geographical facts and to try to insert some level of justice that could also allow us to achieve greater levels of equality in our country. That is why there was a fundamental commitment to shift the way in which those resource allocations were going to be made.
The premier and all of the parties at the time, in fact the whole population of Newfoundland and Labrador, called on those of us who were running for election to make a commitment. The premier wanted us to make our position absolutely crystal clear as to whether we were going to honour the needs and obligations that we have in a federation that is going to have some level of fairness associated with it. The consequence was that we put our commitments in writing and made them absolutely clear.
Voting for the motion today is one way in which we can acknowledge that we were serious when we made these commitments. We have full confidence that once those resource revenues start to flow, and we hope they start to flow soon to restore some hope to those communities, there will be a transformation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Then the can do attitude of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will be unleashed because finally they will have available to them some of the resources from the natural wealth that lies offshore beneath the ocean.
They have been denied their way of life by virtue of the collapse of the cod stocks. We know that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling with enormous adversities. We have a chance to right the balance. The question is, are we going to do it? Are we going to make a statement? Are we going to put pressure on the promise breaking government to do the right thing?
Our party will be standing with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, saying that it is time for justice. It is time for some equality and it is time for promises to be honoured. That is where the New Democratic Party of Canada stands.
Let me address in a little more detail the issue concerning the whole question of the relationship between resource revenues, royalties, taxes, et cetera. I do not think it has been communicated well enough that even after this so-called 100% situation is fully rectified, the federal government will still be receiving enormous revenues from the oil and gas fiscal situation by virtue of corporate taxation.
According to Mr. Harris, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Newfoundland and Labrador, fully 53% of all revenues generated by the offshore, even after the 100% is guaranteed, will actually arriving at Ottawa's door.
Let us not try to pretend that somehow the federal government or the people of Canada would not be adequately protected or would not share in the revenues coming from Newfoundland and Labrador. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are doing nothing more than asking for a fair share. Our position is that they are entitled to that fair share.
If we take a close look at the conditions of life in Newfoundland and Labrador right now, we would see that by most indicators the communities and individuals are struggling. The province is losing its young people. It is in deficit. It has a very large debt by comparison with its population. Surely the idea that some day there might be enough revenue that the province could actually address these issues should not be used as an excuse to not even provide it with the revenues in the first place. That is essentially the line of argument that we are hearing.
It is time that we took a look at problems that exist today and the solutions that are available today and that we are committed to, instead of looking off into the future and imagining scenarios that might or might not unfold and assume that no Parliament or group of provinces sitting down with goodwill in the future, if there were changed circumstances, could sort things out. That is a very pessimistic strategy that does not solve problems. We have problems right now that need to be addressed.
In closing, it is time for us, first, to honour the commitments that we made. The Prime Minister is in the process of breaking his promise. That is not acceptable. It is time for us to honour the right of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to have a fair share of their offshore revenues so that they can build the kind of community in society that they have been desperately yearning to do and they will have that capacity if we provide them with the resources that are rightfully theirs.