Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. member that I do not have to withdraw because I did not make the comment specifically about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The comment I made applies to the people of Atlantic Canada generally.
This was a bad news budget for the people of Atlantic Canada. There are no job creation efforts in the budget. It is the same old song and dance routine with the Liberals. They talk about the band-aid but they ignore the gaping cut they have created in the budget.
The hon. member talked about transfers to the various provinces. I am sorry I did not have a little more time to go into them. The budget and the CHST cash transfers to the various provinces are unfair. Ontario, Alberta and B.C., the three richest provinces in Canada, are all getting an increase, albeit a modest increase, in their cash transfers. Yet provinces like Newfoundland, P.E.I., Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia are feeling the pinch from this budget. These are the provinces that have been hit the hardest.
It is the same song and dance routine from this government. I did not make the statement that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador specifically have no future or that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Many good things are happening in Newfoundland. There is the Hibernia project. The Terra Nova project will soon kick in. Voisey's Bay hopefully in the not too distant future will start up. These are things which will happen in the future.
We need jobs now in Newfoundland and Labrador. Nine thousand two-hundred people a year are leaving our province. It may not be a significant number in Ontario but when there is a population of 500,000, 9,200 people a year is a very, very significant number.
Last year school enrolment in Newfoundland went down by 4,200 students, 4.3%. That is very dangerous in a province with a small population base. If that continues and if the federal government does not make some commitment to job creation, or at least give some indication of a post-TAGS program, then we are going to see the next outmigration from our province double what it is now. I really fear for that little province. Newfoundland should not have that kind of haemorrhaging.
There are young people coming out of university on a daily basis who cannot stop at the university door. They go to the airport immediately and head to other provinces, like B.C. and Ontario. We are educating people, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on education in Newfoundland, to have those people travel to B.C., Ontario and Alberta. We have a great deal of concern about that.