Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007

Part 1 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. Specifically, the Excise Tax Act is amended to
(a) increase the percentage of available input tax credits for GST/HST paid on meal expenses of truck drivers from 50% to 80% over five years beginning with expenses incurred on or after March 19, 2007;
(b) increase the GST/HST annual filing threshold from $500,000 in taxable supplies to $1,500,000 and the annual remittance threshold from $1,500 to $3,000, both effective for fiscal years that begin after 2007;
(c) increase the GST/HST 48-hour travellers’ exemption from $200 to $400 effective in respect of travellers returning to Canada on or after March 20, 2007; and
(d) implement changes to the rules governing self-assessment under Division IV of Part IX of the Excise Tax Act to ensure that GST/HST applies appropriately in respect of intangible personal property acquired on a zero-rated basis and consumed in furthering domestic activities, applicable to supplies made after March 19, 2007.
Part 2 amends the non-GST portion of the Excise Tax Act to implement measures announced in the March 19, 2007 Budget. Specifically, the excise tax exemptions for renewable fuels, including ethanol and bio-diesel, are repealed, effective April 1, 2008.
Part 3 implements income tax measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. In particular, it
(a) introduces a new Working Income Tax Benefit;
(b) eliminates income tax on elementary and secondary school scholarships;
(c) eliminates capital gains tax on donations of publicly-listed securities to private foundations;
(d) enhances the child fitness tax credit;
(e) expands the scope of the public transit tax credit;
(f) increases the lifetime capital gains exemption to $750,000;
(g) increases the deductible percentage of meal expenses for long-haul truck drivers;
(h) provides tax relief in respect of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games;
(i) allows for phased-retirement options for pension plans;
(j) extends the mineral exploration tax credit;
(k) enhances tax benefits for donations of medicine to the developing world;
(l) streamlines the process for prescribed stock exchanges;
(m) introduces an investment tax credit for child care spaces;
(n) introduces a new withholding tax exemption with respect to certain cross-border interest payments;
(o) prevents double deductions of interest expense on borrowed money used to finance foreign affiliates (the Anti-Tax-Haven Initiative);
(p) eases tax remittance and filing requirements for small business;
(q) introduces a mechanism to accommodate functional currency reporting;
(r) provides certain tobacco processors that do not manufacture tobacco products with relief from the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Surtax; and
(s) provides authority for regulations requiring the disclosure by publicly traded trusts and partnerships of information enabling investment managers to prepare the tax information slips that they are required to issue to investors on a timely basis.
Part 4 implements the disability savings measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget. The measures are intended to support long-term savings through registered disability savings plans to provide for the financial security of persons with severe and prolonged impairments in physical or mental functions. Part 4 contains amendments to the Income Tax Act to allow for the creation of registered disability savings plans. It also enacts the Canada Disability Savings Act. That Act provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Grants in relation to contributions made to those plans. The amount of grant is increased for persons of lower and middle income. It also provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Bonds in respect of persons of low income.
Part 5 implements measures that provide for payments to be made to provinces as a financial incentive for them to eliminate taxes on capital under certain circumstances.
Part 6 enacts the Bank for International Settlements (Immunity) Act.
Part 7 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to permit phased retirement arrangements in federally regulated pension plans by allowing an employer to simultaneously pay a partial pension to an employee and provide further pension benefit accruals to the employee. These amendments are consistent with amendments to the Income Tax Regulations to permit phased retirement.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of Canada’s contribution to the Advance Market Commitment.
Part 9 amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to authorize the National Energy Board to regulate traffic, tolls and tariffs in relation to oil and gas pipelines regulated under that Act.
Part 10 amends the Farm Income Protection Act to allow financial institutions to hold contributions under a net income stabilization account program.
Part 11 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide for an additional fiscal equalization payment that may be paid to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This Part also specifies the time and manner in which the calculation of fiscal equalization payments will be made and it amends that Act’s regulation-making authority. In addition, this Part makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 12 amends the Canada Education Savings Act to clarify the authority of the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development to collect, on behalf of the Canada Revenue Agency, any information that the Canada Revenue Agency requires for purposes of administering the registered education savings plan tax provisions.
Part 13 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to an entity, designated by the Minister of Finance, to facilitate public-private partnership projects.
Part 14 implements tax measures proposed in the October 30, 2007 Economic Statement. With respect to income tax measures, it
(a) reduces the general corporate income tax rate;
(b) accelerates the tax reduction for small businesses;
(c) reduces the lowest personal income tax rate, which automatically reduces the rate used to calculate non-refundable tax credits and the alternative minimum tax; and
(d) increases the basic personal amount and the amount upon which the spouse or common-law partner and wholly dependent relative credits are calculated.
Part 14 also amends the Excise Tax Act to implement, effective January 1, 2008, the reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) and the federal component of the harmonized sales tax (HST) from 6% to 5%. That Act is amended to provide transitional rules for determining the GST/HST rate applicable to transactions that straddle the January 1, 2008, implementation date, including transitional rebates in respect of the sale of residential complexes where transfer of ownership and possession both take place on or after January 1, 2008, pursuant to a written agreement entered into on or before October 30, 2007. The Excise Act, 2001 is also amended to increase excise duties on tobacco products to offset the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. The Air Travellers Security Charge Act is also amended to ensure that rates for domestic and transborder air travel reflect the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. Those amendments generally apply as of January 1, 2008.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

My colleague from Halifax suggests a national child care program. The entire Kelowna accord was $5 billion. There were meaningful things that we could have done with this $5 billion, things that would have made a difference. We would not have this squandering. The irresponsible spending of the Conservative Party is astounding.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre, who has spoken many times in this House about homelessness and poverty in his riding. We are seeing much more of that across the country.

In the statement I made this afternoon in the House, I said that we had just had a study done in British Columbia which showed that we have 10,500 homeless in the province of British Columbia. That was a study done in over 60 cities, not just downtown Vancouver, and it was not done in downtown Toronto, Ontario. Just in 60 communities in British Columbia, there are over 10,000 homeless people. That is a shame.

However, at the same time, we see the government giving huge tax breaks to large corporations. Some of those corporations are doing business in the tar sands of Alberta. Those companies are building pipelines to take the raw bitumen to cities in the U.S.A. to be processed. That could be a potential loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

I want to know why these large corporations, which are cross-border shopping for our oil and our natural resources, taking jobs out of this country, and making billions of dollars in profits, are being given such huge tax breaks while at the same time they are increasing their carbon emissions. They are making Canada's greenhouse gases go up at the expense of all these people in our communities who are living on the streets and in their cars. There are people who are in dire need of some assistance. They could have had that from the government instead of seeing it give all that money to huge corporations.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Island North for pointing out another good reason why we oppose the fall 2007 economic update. It simply rewards, with wheelbarrows full of money, these businesses that do not need the support. It is a reward worth billions of dollars.

We usually use our tax strategy and tax policy to encourage good behaviour by some businesses and discourage bad behaviour by others, or to encourage growth in sectors that otherwise would not grow and need the support.

In other words, we do not need to support growth in the oil sector right now. That sector is doing just fine without yet another wheelbarrow full of dough delivered dutifully to them by the Conservative government.

I believe the Conservatives have squandered yet another multi-billion dollar surplus by misdirecting it. Instead of choosing the priorities of ordinary Canadians, they are choosing the priorities of the sectors they choose to pamper. I should point out that we might not be facing this difficulty if they would only implement the part of the Federal Accountability Act that would create a parliamentary budget officer. That is so we do not get blindsided by these multi-billion dollar surpluses that the Conservatives deny and deny, right up until the date they announce them, and then shovel them to their friends.

If we had more transparency in the budgetary process so that Canadians knew, or at least had some fighting chance to know, what the budgetary surplus really was, I think we would see Canadians mobilizing and demanding spending on the priorities they care about and not having the government squander it by blowing it all on its friends.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to give us his views on an issue that affects many of us: the situation of our seniors. This situation is very disturbing, because we know that thousands of seniors are living well below the poverty line. Earlier, the member made comments about democracy. He just made other comments about the surplus.

I would like to know whether he believes, as many of us do, that the government should be focusing on rectifying the lack of action, the fundamental lack of concern about increasing the guaranteed income supplement and making decent retroactive payments to those people who were shortchanged. Bill C-28 does not address this issue.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question regarding the guaranteed income supplement for senior Canadians. Those who qualify for the guaranteed income supplement are the poorest of the poor. People are not eligible until they are at a very, very low level of income.

When we learned that the government was aware of some 300,000 people who qualified for the GIS but were not receiving it, we leaped into action. With the cooperation of colleagues from the Bloc, we forced the Liberal government of the day to remedy that situation by at least making more seniors aware of the eligibility for the GIS.

However, then there was the retroactivity. Some of them were not collecting the benefit for which they were eligible for 10 or 11 years, but the retroactivity was only 11 months. My colleague is correct. With such a huge budgetary surplus, why not change the lives of these low income seniors in a dramatic way by giving them the money they were eligible for all along?

Here is my question on a lot of poverty issues, whether it is first nations poverty or the child poverty that we experience in our own ridings. If not now, when? If not now, when there is a $10 billion budgetary surplus to elevate the social conditions of low income Canadians, then when? Let us imagine the unrealized potential of a child who grows up without the basics needed to flourish. Let us imagine the lost opportunity of these kids who do not have adequate housing or basic nutrition and who have basic needs.

For heaven's sake, 10 record surplus budgets in a row and it is still not time to address basic social needs, but it is time to give even further tax cuts to the biggest and most profitable corporations in the country? There is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Conservatives think. They are missing it.

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would like to add my own thoughts about what just happened in the vote.

I am an independent member and there are a number of independent members here. We were not given any advance notice about the vote. I was in the lobby and I remember the clock showing that there were 11 minutes and 40 seconds left before the vote. However, when I walked into the chamber the vote was under way.

All I can say is that there are tools that we can use and one of the tools is unanimous consent. If that is the way the game is to be played, that is the way we will play it too. We are a part of this. We were elected and we are entitled to vote. It was just a rotten piece of business the way the vote was conducted.

I want to add my remarks to Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill, and I want to focus on an issue that is very important to Atlantic Canada, and that is the Atlantic accord. Bill C-28 does impact the Atlantic accord, which is a very important part of it.

First I want to say that the Atlantic accords originally were a number of agreements that were not all called Atlantic accords but are assumed now to be called Atlantic accords. Everybody has adopted the term “Atlantic accords” for a number of agreements that took place over a period of time.

Basically, the accords guaranteed that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would receive 100% of the revenue from their offshore oil resources. The last agreement was signed on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2005, with Nova Scotia and negotiated and signed by Dr. John Hamm and the former prime minister of Canada. that agreement was very specific that the Atlantic accord arrangement and the Atlantic accord payment would be based on the equalization formula that existed at the time that the calculation was made.

It is ironic that the original agreement that I just mentioned, signed on February 14, is two pages long and nine paragraphs long and yet there are 24 pages of amendments in Bill C-28 to amend that two page document.

It is not as simple as that, I understand, but that is what has happened with the Atlantic accord issue. It has gone from a very simple, straightforward agreement, to a very complicated, convoluted agreement that is now subject to interpretation and manipulation.

The government said that the Atlantic accords have been honoured and respected. Now it is saying that it has made them whole with the agreement in Bill C-28. With all due respect, that is not true. The government broke the Atlantic accords and everybody in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland knows it. They have been broken. They are not respected. They are not honoured and they have not been made whole. The only way they can made whole is if this little agreement, this nine paragraph agreement, is honoured.

None of the other alternatives that the government has come up, its different interpretations or manipulations, will satisfy the people in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding this and I want to go through some of the confusing issues, because it has been confusing for everybody involved with this arrangement, and why the deal was broken.

The province of Nova Scotia put out a brochure telling every Nova Scotian that:

That budget [in March 2007] effectively ripped up our Offshore Accord and all of the opportunities it is expected to bring to Nova Scotians.

The province of Nova Scotia even started an online petition demanding that Ottawa honour the offshore accord and all agreements it signs with any province or territory.

To me, that is a simple concept, a simple principle that all governments should honour. They should honour signed contracts with the province or territory with which they are made or with an individual, a company or another country.

It is unbelievable that the Government of Canada would break a signed contract. I refer again to the Atlantic accord, which is two pages long. It was signed by a minister of the federal government and a minister of the provincial government. It was a signed contract and the government just decided to disregard that contract, to rip it up in the March 19 budget.

A few things are confusing. It is confusing that a lot of the people who came to the House from Alberta and the western provinces were very upset about the national energy program that was foisted on Alberta in the eighties. It redirected revenue from the gas and oil business in Alberta to the federal government and they were very upset about that. It almost caused a revolution in western Canada. However, those same people turned around and did the same thing to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. They imposed changes on the gas and oil regime to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland that took away our share of the revenue or reduced our share in the same way that the NEP took away from Alberta.

I do not understand why they can be so upset about the Alberta experience but then turn around and not hesitate to do it to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

I find it confusing that the government has representatives in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland but none of them were asked for advice, given any consultation or given an opportunity to represent their constituents through this whole exercise of bringing forth these amendments to the Atlantic accord.

Even more amazing, the government has ministers in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and neither one of them were informed. They were blind-sided as much as everyone else.

When the budget came down on March 19, everyone was surprised. No politician east of Ontario was consulted on these changes even though they severely impacted Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and I do not understand that.

I do not understand why the government would not consult with the provincial people, the province of Nova Scotia and the province of Newfoundland, if it were going to make profound changes to this signed contract, but again it did not.

I refer to a statement that Premier Danny Williams made today. He said, “Essentially, we are being railroaded into an untenable situation whereby we are forced to choose the O’Brien formula” and the traditional formula.

The province is being railroaded. That is not the way to run a government and have intergovernmental relations if it wants to succeed.

I do not understand this one. The Prime Minister said that the government essentially broke the accords because it wanted to have one equalization formula in the country and it thought that by doing this that would do it.

However, in the summary of Bill C-28, part 11 states:

Part 11 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide for an additional fiscal equalization payment that may be paid to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Therefore, two provinces now have one equalization formula and the other eight provinces have a different one. It is good for Nova Scotia and for Newfoundland and Labrador but it is contrary to what the Prime Minister said. He said that he wanted to have one equalization formula but right here it says that additional fiscal equalization payments will be paid to two provinces but not the others. That does not make sense to me.

Another thing that does not make sense to me, again in the same light that the Prime Minister said that he wanted to have one equalization formula, is that now two provinces under Bill C-28 have the opportunity to calculate an equalization formula, use that formula and take advantage of it, which has a 3.5% escalator clause for every year until 2020. Two provinces have it and eight do not. Again, we have a different equalization program.

The ironic thing is that when we had the Atlantic accord and equalization, we did have a uniform equalization program across the country, plus the Atlantic accord. However, now the government has actually enshrined two different equalization programs in the country, which seems to go against everything the Prime Minister said that he wanted to do and every justification he had for breaking the accords in the first place.

Another issue that confuses me is what the Minister of Finance wrote in the Halifax Herald on June 9. He said, “There will be no side deals on this equalization business”.

This is the ultimate side deal. Every year the province of Nova Scotia and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, if they choose to take it, will be able to calculate a parallel equalization formula and then at the end of the year, if that parallel calculation is more than the O'Brien formula, the Government of Canada writes a cheque to the province of Nova Scotia. If that is not a side deal that is renewed every year, I do not know what is.

Another thing is, if I understand this correctly, and I think I do, the O'Brien formula goes to 2013. Eight provinces have a commitment on equalization to 2013. Bill C-28 makes a commitment to 2020 for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland that they would get the old amended formula of equalization. Essentially, there is one deal for two provinces to go to 2020 and one deal for the other eight provinces that goes to 2013.

Again, the whole basis for breaking the accords in the first place, based on the government's statement, was to have one principle based equalization formula.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley but the time has arrived for a deferred recorded division. He has 10 minutes left in his 20-minute speech when the House returns to this matter.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, be read the third time and passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

When we were last debating Bill C-28, the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley still had 10 minutes and he now has the floor.

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, when I finished my first 10 minutes I was going through the contradictions in the ongoing discussions about the Atlantic accords and the different things that came up that confused Nova Scotians and Newfoundlanders about the approach that the government has about the Atlantic accords and the fact that it just took them away.

In case there is any question about the accords being taken away, I would like to read from the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, an independent think tank, that said:

The new program also reverses a pre-election commitment to exclude natural resource revenues, and includes 50% of these revenues.

It goes on to say:

The protection provided by the Accords is undermined.... In the authors’ view, this violates both the letter and the spirit of the Accord.

Just today the Premier of Newfoundland said:

Essentially, we are being railroaded into an untenable situation whereby we are forced to choose the O’Brien formula....

In the mail-out that he sent around to every Nova Scotian, Premier MacDonald said:

That budget effectively ripped up our Offshore Accord and all of the opportunities it is expected to bring to Nova Scotians.

Also in the mail-out, Premier MacDonald called on all Nova Scotians to join him and sign a petition “demanding that Ottawa honour the Offshore Accord and all agreements it signs with any province or territory”.

We would not think we would need to have a petition to get the Government of Canada to honour a signed agreement with anyone, whether it is a province, another country, a business person or a single person. However, the Premier of the Province of Nova Scotia felt compelled to call on Canadians, and Nova Scotians in particular, to sign a petition demanding that the government honour signed agreements.

We now have an agreement with Nova Scotia but it is not the Atlantic accord as requested in the petition that the Premier of Nova Scotia asked for.

I want to go on to another bit of confusion. I want to point out that when the Prime Minister came to Nova Scotia in 2005 he was very supportive of the Atlantic accords. I want to read a couple of things he said. In the Halifax Sunday Herald of February 6, he said:

...it was Mr. Hamm's leadership that brought home the agreement, which he described as the best opportunity Nova Scotia had in 138 years.

Why would he say that and then take it away? That is confusing to a lot of people.

The Prime Minister went on to say that the accords were “courageous and visionary”. I do not understand how he could say that and now the government refers to the accords as double-dipping, cherry-picking and double-stacking.

I do not know how one goes from courageous and visionary to double-dipping, double-stacking and cherry-picking, but somehow the exact same agreements, which were at one time, in the Prime Minister's view, courageous and visionary, are now double-dipping, double-stacking and cherry-picking.

It is confusing for the people of Nova Scotia to wonder how the Prime Minister and the government could zig and zag on this very issue.

When the government decided to break the Atlantic accord, it gave two reasons. One was that it wanted to have a single, principled base equalization formula for the whole country. It has done exactly the opposite with Bill C-28.

In Bill C-28, the government established an equalization formula for two provinces and a different one for eight provinces. Two provinces have a 3.5% escalator clause until 2020. Eight do not have that escalator clause. Two provinces have an agreement that goes to 2020. Eight provinces have an agreement that goes to 2013. The government has created exactly what the Prime Minister said he would not do.

I want to again read part 11 in Bill C-28, which states:

Part 11 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide for an additional fiscal equalization payment that may be paid to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Previously the Atlantic accord was not an equalization payment. It was an offset payment, but now the government has established a different equalization formula, which seems to me to totally contradict the goal of the Prime Minister in establishing one equalization formula because now we do have two formulas. The ironic thing is that when we had the Atlantic accord and the O'Brien formula we had one equalization formula, which is exactly what he said he wanted.

The other goal was to eliminate any side deals. I do not know how we would describe the side deals in Bill C-28, but it is full of side deals as far as the accord goes. One is that two provinces would get the 3.5% escalator until 2020 and the other one is that at the end of each year the federal government may pay Nova Scotia an amount of money each year if the parallel calculation is more than the O'Brien formula. Each one of those is a side deal for each year.

That is the reason I will be voting against Bill C-28. I voted against it before and I will be voting against it again.

I am not arguing that the province of Nova Scotia has negotiated a new deal, and it may be a good deal, but we do not know because we have never seen the projections. Senators, members of Parliament and the media have asked for the projections to confirm what the government says when it says that the new deal is good for Nova Scotia.

We had the provincial projections but we have never had the federal projections. If any of the Conservative members do stand up I hope they will table the projections so we will know whether it is a good deal for Nova Scotia, not based on the federal government.

Officials have told us that they have done their projections. They have done the best case scenario and the worst case scenario, but as yet we have not been able to get them to share those projections with us so we can share their enthusiasm for this program if it is accurate. However, we do not know because we do not have the projections.

I will close my remarks with that but I will say that the Atlantic accord is still in effect. It is a two-page agreement and it is still there. It is just that the government has chosen not to honour or respect it and it has chosen to take a different route. It is a shame. It is a two-page agreement, nine paragraphs long and the Conservatives have decided to break the deal and not honour it. They have tried to come up three alternatives now, none of which are the Atlantic accord. That is why I will be voting against Bill C-28.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to comment very briefly and then ask the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley a question on Bill C-28.

I want to commend him not only on his consistent principled position in standing up for the Atlantic accord, but also for him making it very clear that standing up for the Atlantic accord requires voting against Bill C-28. I commend him for taking that position.

My colleague gave an excellent summation of the spectacular betrayal and flip-flop and double-crossing that goes on whenever we deal with this issue. Nothing could be clearer than what the then leader of the official opposition said on the campaign trail in Halifax, the city I am privileged to represent. He then did a complete and total reversal after he found himself in power.

In that sense, it is starting to look a lot like the more familiar pattern of Liberals who run on a progressive platform and then when in government, govern on the right. They are meanspirited and are quite prepared to throw Atlantic Canada overboard, which they have consistently done. When the Liberals were government, they threw Atlantic Canada overboard in the period between 1993 and 1997. That resulted in the 11 sitting Liberals in Nova Scotia being defeated. They were unceremoniously thrown out of office, which brings me to my two brief questions.

My first concerns the position of the premier. A very accurate summation was given of the premier's initial outrage at the fact that the Atlantic accord had been trashed. He pleaded with every Nova Scotian at considerable public expense. He put out what we would call a householder to every Nova Scotian, asking for them to petition the government to reinstate the Atlantic accord. So far so good.

More recent, the premier sent out a second householder in which he made a number of claims that turned out to be simply untrue. He made a number of claims about how Bill C-28 would fix the problem and that it justified his decision to abandon the fight for the Atlantic accord. The benefits that were promised are not delivered in Bill C-28. As far as he is concerned, he is off the hook. Many of the claims he has made in that document are simply not accurate. They are not substantiated.

What does the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley make of the premier's betrayal of his own commitment to fight to ensure the full reinstatement of the Atlantic accord?

What does he make of the Liberals from Atlantic Canada, who are cozying up to him when it comes to the full vote on Bill C-28, and then he is completely abandoned, thrown overboard, by every other member of that party with no intentions of supporting Bill C-28 changes, which would reinstate the Atlantic accord?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I remind the hon. member for Halifax that some people probably do not measure time, but I do. The comment came to me that we were under resuming debate and not under questions and comments.

If the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley takes as much time to respond, he will have burned the whole clock.

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I would not burn the clock, Mr. Speaker, but I will answer the second question first about the Liberals cozying up to me. My caucus is not that big and I welcome the company.

As far as the Premier of Nova Scotia goes, I tripped on his presentation. The Premier of Nova Scotia came to the Senate and made a presentation. I read it the other day. He was told, in all fairness, by the Minister of Finance of the Government of Canada that “not one comma of the accord has been changed, and that it remains in its original, pristine form”.

I contend, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council contends and all Nova Scotians contend that this line is not right. I contend that the premier of the province was misled, the same way I was. I recognize those words “not a comma changed”. I was told exactly the same thing.

In all fairness to the Premier of Nova Scotia, he was given wrong information in the beginning, but in the end he did call on Nova Scotians to sign a petition to demand the Government of Canada honour all its agreements.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I have done before, I want to commend my colleague. We had the spectacle in the spring of the Minister of National Defence and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the regional minister for Nova Scotia, saying in the House in answer to a question from the member for West Nova, that no member of the government would be kicked out of caucus for voting his or her principles. That was before he realized one person over there had principles and he backtracked on that pretty quickly. That spectacle is known to Nova Scotian.

I want to ask my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley a simple question. The accord can be complex. Equalization is not easy to understand. It is my sense that Nova Scotians understood what the Atlantic accord stood for and they know it has been broken.

Is it the belief of my colleague and friend that the people of Nova Scotia actually understand the Atlantic accord and know what they have lost?

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the first part of question was about the Minister of National Defence and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. I did not know he had said that until minutes before my vote, but it did not affect my vote.

As far as the people of Nova Scotia go, I believe all Nova Scotians know something went wrong. They do not necessarily understand the accords because they can be complicated. There are several accords, several accord agreements, several equalization formulas, but they know the Government of Canada broke the contract.

The contract is only two pages long, with nine paragraphs. It is very simple. The government decided, for whatever, reason to not honour it. It is still there. It is still an obligation of the Government of Canada. Even today, it chooses not to honour the accord.