Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Calgary West. I would not characterize it that way. That is not the tradeoff at all.
The point I was wanting to make at the beginning of my few remarks was with regard to those who talk condescendingly about transfer payments, as though somehow we are helping those poor people down there who are trying to keep body and soul together. I do not subscribe to that notion. I am saying that part of the tradeoff that we entered into in 1949 was the one that I described. In the interest of time I will not repeat that.
I want to come to the second part of the member's question about what opportunities I see. One does not need to be a nuclear specialist to realize a couple of things. By the way in 1949 when we agreed to take on Canada as part of a larger nation, we were in the black in Newfoundland, don't forget.
I did not hear the heckle so I do not what was said. Enjoy it anyway.
We came in with a balance in 1949. That is not quite the case right now. There were a couple of reasons. We had a very thriving post-war economy based largely on the military. When I say "the military" I mean the very large presence of American forces in St. John's, many thousands in my riding of Stephenville and many thousands in Argentia and so on. That was a part of it. The strategic realities of the last few years have changed, hence the need for deployment of forces in Newfoundland. American forces have drastically altered over the last few years.
We had a thriving fishing economy as well. I do not need to take the House through what has happened to that, particularly in the last two or three years. When I came to the House for the first time federally in 1979 I used to brag that my riding had the same unemployment rate as the province of Alberta at that particular time which was 3.8 per cent or 4 per cent. That was the unemployment rate in the riding of Burin-St. George's. The south coast of Newfoundland is essentially ice-free year round
so people work there eleven to eleven and a half months a year. They do what all smart Newfoundlanders do: they take two weeks off at Christmas and have a party and then go right back at it in January. That was the unemployment rate.
It has changed considerably since then. There is a factor that the downturn in the fishery has caused problems for us. The opportunity, to respond to his question, is to crank the fishery back up.
In closing, I am sure I will rile my friends from Quebec but this is not the intention. If we were were getting the economic value for hydro power we would not be one of those seven provinces today. We would be in the other column. We would not be getting any equalization payments, thank you very much, at all. If we were getting the economic value for our resource, Churchill Falls Power, we would not be needing one cent of equalization from the federal government.
The opportunities are somewhat constrained by some of the political realities at the moment.