Mr. Speaker, with reference to the comments made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, I note that it was his own Minister of Industry who as premier of Newfoundland said that the government should seriously consider allowing provinces for a period of time not to be penalized through the welfare trap by withholding equalization payments pursuant to growth through non-renewable resource revenues.
I would like to follow up the remarks made by member for South Shore. At the outset they confused me. He said that he was in favour of lifting the ceiling on equalization altogether. That was not a position taken by his finance critic during his opening remarks on the bill. Lifting the ceiling on equalization is a matter entirely different from the substance of his remarks related to non-renewable resource revenues.
If the member wants to lift the ceiling on equalization, the federal government will ask that the floor be dropped, which protects the provinces on the other side. He is treading into very dangerous waters. I encourage him to focus on allowing provinces more flexibility with respect to resource revenues than completely changing the system. We might as well throw the formula out if he lifts the ceiling, as the floor will go and the provinces will suffer.