Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's question in relation to Alberta, the rest of Canada and my home province of New Brunswick. In fact, we do have a lot of young Canadians leaving the poorer provinces of Canada to seek work elsewhere. We like to see that mobility, but obviously it does create a problem in some of our provinces. We talk about the brain drain to the United States, but there is also a drain of talent from eastern Canada to western Canada. We can understand that and we appreciate it. We do not want to see any artificial barriers put up, and I know the minister himself would not.
In fact, in terms of putting a cap on equalization, one of the arguments the premiers used, and I think successfully, is that we are doing our best and we are moving ahead, and we want that stability so we can continue to move ahead and build the infrastructure that is needed and build an economy back home that will allow our young people to stay there.
At the end of the day, the government cannot give with one hand and take back with the other. For example, in the equalization formula we have a connection between that and the CHST, the moneys that the federal government transfers to the provinces in the health and social transfer. When it takes money out of that pot and pretends to put money in another one, nothing happens. There is a sort of balance in the sense that we are really not moving ahead. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other would be the correct analogy.
However, the truth is that governments should not be doing that, because they have to look at the overall picture. To build good education systems, health care systems and a strong economy in New Brunswick, we need that little bit of help to get us going.
There will be a fair degree of economic growth in New Brunswick. The numbers that are coming out of Atlantic Canada are looking pretty good, because we have built on some of our successes and we want to continue to build on those successes. We do not want to be penalized because we are succeeding, and that is really how we look upon this, as being penalized for succeeding.
The federal government is still very important to us in this country, and it has to take the lead. We do not want to penalize anyone in this country for being successful, either on the tax end as an individual or on the giving end in terms of recipients of equalization. We want to build on our strengths.
The truth is that we would love to see a society where young Canadians would not have to leave their homes to seek work elsewhere, whether it is in the United States or some other part of Canada. That would be a perfect world. We will probably never achieve that, but let us not penalize the poorer provinces for the successes they are enjoying.
The federal government is enjoying a fair amount of economic success over the last number of years. Let it share that with the rest of Canada, because every single Canadian has paid into general revenues and those are the dollars that are being used to help support the poorer provinces.