Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Dartmouth for a very instructive and informative speech. I learned a great deal about some of the issues facing some of the provinces, especially in the Atlantic region.
A lot of us in the west would be interested to know that what we expected to be a brand new era for these two provinces with the harvesting of offshore oil and gas has failed to yield results. It has not brought the anticipated relief. Listening to the hon. member, I can certainly empathize with this situation.
I note from her speech that the budget promised $10.3 billion in equalization to the provinces last year. According to the fiscal reference tables from finance they did in fact receive $10.3 billion but during the same period of time, the government also clawed back $2.3 billion.
I understand the hon. member's point. Nova Scotia, due to the census and the double whammy of losing population due to lack of opportunity, is being doubly disadvantaged by having its equalization payments cut on a per capita basis given the population it has lost.
The member is a representative from Atlantic Canada. Rather than managing poverty, which is essentially what the government has been doing with regions of Atlantic Canada, would it not be logical to simply allow Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to keep all the revenue from oil and gas for a fixed period of 20 years until we actually equalize those provinces and the opportunities available to those provinces? Then perhaps we could look at negotiating the type of clawback that exists today. Would that not be a logical step in terms of a permanent solution to the disadvantages that unfortunately exist in some of those regions?