Mr. Speaker, that is one of the points that I tried to make. This whole equalization formula was based on fairness and generosity. That is the type of generosity that we would expect from the Government of Canada. However, the government's approach is to divide and conquer, not quite understanding the generosity of this country where every premier and every province will come to the defence of the other province.
In this particular case we are talking about offshore resources in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia specifically. Again, that may apply to New Brunswick in the future and possibly Prince Edward Island.
The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister made a commitment. That is what we do not want to lose in this debate. He made a commitment during the heat of an election campaign. It was a promise that would allow those provinces to keep those resource revenues. Now he has reneged on that promise, as he has done on a number of promises.
When I sat down in my place prior to question period, that was the point we were on, the litany of broken promises by the Prime Minister.
The generosity that the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl is referring to is exactly the point of this whole debate. That is what we are talking about, sharing the wealth in this country, rich provinces and poor provinces working together.
It is nice to see the premiers of Canada agreeing on that. The people who are reneging on that promise to share that wealth are the Prime Minister of Canada and his Liberal government. Those Liberal backbenchers, every single one of them, whether from Atlantic Canada or someplace else, should be simply ashamed of themselves.
We support fairness in this system of equalization. We are expecting the Government of Canada to share in the wealth of this country and honour its promises.