Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. He gives me way too much credit though. He said that Liberal members were not heckling so I must have given a good speech. Actually, I think I put them to sleep. In any event, I appreciate the question.
It is true that the equalization formula needs to be changed. It is not just my party that is saying this. In the last number of days, my office has spent a lot of time on the telephone talking to finance departments in the provinces. They have made it clear, that while they favour going ahead with this particular bill to extend the formula for up to a year, what they really want is a new formula. They feel strongly, as my colleague has pointed out, that there are things about the current formula that are unfair. Therefore, they want those things addressed.
I mentioned that in British Columbia the issue was property values and property taxes which count toward the formula and give a false impression about the relative wealth of British Columbia.
In other cases, the member mentioned Manitoba where the people did not buy enough lottery tickets and therefore missed out on the lottery of equalization and that is unfair.
One of the most important issues, and I think the House generally understands this, is that when we are talking about non-renewable resources, resources that cannot be replaced, it is important to not have a clawback that is so steep that in the end we cause these provinces to deplete their resources. They are not able to take the revenue from that and put it into their province in the way that will give them an economy that makes up for the loss of those resources.
In other words, what they need to do is take that revenue and diversify their economy, so when those resources run out they can continue to provide a high standard of living for their people.
Right now in Newfoundland and Labrador, where it is enjoying tremendous growth in its oil and gas industry, almost every dollar of that revenue is being clawed back by the equalization formula. That must change. There is no question that Newfoundland and Labrador, of all provinces, deserves a break when it comes to ensuring that it gets to keep more of that revenue. It is a province that in many regions has an unemployment rate of 20%. In St. John's right now, because of the activity of oil and gas, it has fallen to under 8% I understand and that is encouraging.
However, imagine what Newfoundland and Labrador could do if it could keep more of that revenue to put into infrastructure and do some of the economic development that it needs to do to ensure that in the long run it can sustain a strong economy.