Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to say that I was definitely a member of Mr. Trudeau's governement and I am very proud of it. It is quite special because at that time, we defeated a proposal for the separation of Quebec.
And we will defeat it again.
I take this opportunity to make sure the facts are on the record. I remind members opposite of the impact of the new equalization formula with the provinces that we brought in a few months ago in the February budget. This is the value of the 1994 tax base update: Newfoundland, $7.6 million; P.E.I., $5 million; Nova Scotia, $.8 million; New Brunswick, $5.5; and Quebec, $70.8 million.
If there is a testament to the kind of federalism we want to build in the country, it is reflected in those kinds of numbers. We are prepared as a federal government working on a national tax base to bring together the wealth of a country and make sure it is divided and distributed in a way that helps regions with real needs. This demonstrates to me once again the falsity of the underlying premise of the resolution.
If the hon. member for Gaspé who just spoke wants another testament to what is happening, the people in the Gaspé are seriously affected by the downturn in the fishery and their resource industries. That is shared by other people in Atlantic Canada.
What he did not mention with the selective memory that the separatists seem to have is that the federal government has just introduced a $1.9 billion program for people in the fishing industry, including his own riding, through which it will be able to have substantial weekly benefits, go back to work, have support for training, for self-employment, for economic development, for community employment. It will be able to give some hope to its children by going back to work in a green corps to replace the fishery, enhance the resources, go back to work to actually rebuild the resource base of that region.
That was a federal program that we introduced and it would seem to me that the hon. member rather than complaining and carping should get to work and do his job as a member of Parliament and help that program work so his own people can go back to work.