Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. He raises a very good point.
I would suggest that if the member wanted to see British Columbia become a beneficiary province the best way to ensure that would be to maintain a New Democrat government there for a long time. In fact at some point in the future that may occur.
But seriously, it is an extraordinarily complex formula. We were briefed several times on the formula and it is very complicated, quite frankly, for a student of these affairs to understand. From a public relations perspective I do not know how to get the point across.
What is important for Canadians living in the contributing provinces to realize is that the people who are on the receiving end do not use the funds in a wasteful manner. They are being used for the basic social fabric, education, health care and those fundamental areas that everyone in Canada values. What makes Canada unique is our ability to provide the funds.
The people who simplistically say that we should cut off equalization have to realize that those people would go somewhere to find opportunities. Ultimately the social problems that would exist in a particular region, such as Atlantic Canada, would exist in another region if we were not able to provide some basic level of service in the areas of social spending, education and health care. Those problems would not disappear simply because of the lack of equalization.
Through an industrial strategy we could ensure that in 10 or 15 years equalization would be less necessary. We have to move on that type of policy. However in the short term it is a fundamental tenet of Canadian social and economic policy that simply needs to be maintained at this time.