Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the very distinguished member for New Brunswick Southwest who was recently elected co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Committee. We are all very honoured to be in his midst. He is a very distinguished member. We are pleased that he shares this House with us.
We agree with the direction and concept of Bill C-24. We certainly agree with the concept and principle of equalization. As this country's fortunes shift from province to province and region to region, it will always be an important part of our being and our whole essence that parts of our country that are more prosperous and have more resources share some of their resources with areas that are not so prosperous.
I think it was the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl who told us how Newfoundland and Nova Scotia used to send salt cod to Alberta. I am sure it appreciated that at the time. I do not know if Alberta would appreciate it now or not, but it appreciated it then. However, it just goes to show how fortunes have changed. That proves the point that this equalization formula is fair and is necessary for our country.
It is not a figment of our imagination either. People should know that it is in our Constitution. Subsection 36(2) reads:
Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.
I think that is a fair assessment of what we are talking about here today. Another part of this whole concept of equalization that we have been pushing in the Conservative Party is the concept of removing the natural resources revenues from the equalization payments. Basically a province that has a defined quantity of a natural resource would have a very short window of opportunity to pull ahead and become a have province rather than a have not province.
It is such a shame to see a province like Newfoundland or Nova Scotia that has a resource which is defined and will be gone some day. It is a shame to see all those revenues clawed back by the federal government and at the end of the day when the resource is gone, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or another province, that has a resource that has been totally exhausted, is right back where it started. The resource did no good for the province or for the region.
We would like to see the natural resources revenues removed from the equalization payments because these are finite amounts of resources. They come and go.
In the case of Newfoundland, I understand that 40% of its gas or oil resources, I am not sure which it is, has already been exhausted. It will not be long before all its resources are exhausted, a matter of a decade or two, whatever, and then it will be right back where it started. It needs that money now. It needs that money from these natural resources to build alternatives, to build economies, and to build infrastructure so that it can compete with the rest of the country. It is critical that these natural resources be removed from the equalization formula. It is not in Bill C-24. However, it is something we would like to see in Bill C-24.
This brings us to the promise that was made during the election, that all offshore gas and oil resources revenues would go to the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. We now know that the provinces are trying to negotiate to get this deal back. The way I look at it, the Prime Minister went to Newfoundland and said--he obviously knew they would lose seats in Newfoundland--that if Newfoundlanders voted Liberal, he would give them 100% of the gas and oil revenues. Newfoundlanders, to a great extent, kept their end of the bargain. However, as soon as the election was over, the Prime Minister said that we have to negotiate.
It is interesting that today the Prime Minister said how much better his offer was than the opposition's offer. I am not sure which offer he is talking about. I am not sure if he is talking about the offer made during the election or the offer he is trying to slam through now.
Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotians will stand their ground and insist to get the deal that was made during the election because that affected a lot of votes. The Liberals said, “You vote for us, we will give you 100% of the revenues. No time limits. No caps. No nothing”.
Now of course we know that they are trying to negotiate another deal. The Prime Minister refers to their offer as a good deal. Perhaps it is better than what was there before, but it is not the deal that we were promised during the election. In my view, the Prime Minister has a verbal contract with the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and he must honour that deal.
I find it interesting that in the debate tonight the Liberal members are talking about a lot of numbers and I cannot even follow them. I cannot follow all the tos-and-fros and the complex arguments they are making when it is really quite simple.
It is about keeping commitments and keeping one's word, and helping provinces that need help. When Liberals stand up to make a speech, I cannot follow them. When we make a point about keeping our offshore gas and oil revenues in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, they stand up and say we are not talking about Bill C-24. What is the point of talking about anything if they do not keep their word in the first place.
The commitment by the government to allow Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to keep 100% of their gas and oil revenues is very much a part of the debate tonight. It may not be actually written in Bill C-24, but it is the word of the government that is at stake. If the government makes promises and does not keep them, then Bill C-24 or any other commitments are really not worth a lot anyway.
We are very much of the opinion that gas and oil revenues should be taken out of the equalization payments. I go back to 2001 when Premier John Hamm from Nova Scotia started this debate with the campaign for fairness. The fairness component referred to when Alberta was starting to realize it had gas and oil revenues and started to realize the benefits. It was allowed to keep its resource revenues from those resources 100%, no clawback, no caps, no limits, no nothing.
Premier Hamm's position was that Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the other provinces on the coast should have exactly the same deal. He called it the campaign of fairness. He waged that war for a long time all by himself. It turns out now that the groundwork he laid was very effective. Newfoundland got involved with it during the campaign.
Premier Danny Williams, another Conservative premier, asked the Prime Minister if he would match the opposition's proposal to remove gas and oil revenues from the equalization formula and the Prime Minister agreed. He said yes publicly, on camera and on the record, that Newfoundland and Nova Scotia can keep 100% of their resource revenues and it will not be part of the equalization formula.
We know what happened since the election. The government tried to negotiate a much different deal. That goes to the point of credibility of the government. We can talk about Bill C-24 and equalization payments, but if the will is not there to keep its commitments and its word, then it hardly matters what we do in the House, unless the government will honour its commitments.
That is our position. We support Bill C-24. We would like to see the gas and oil resource revenues removed from the equalization payments. We want to see the minimum amount of money that the Liberals have committed to the programs stay in so there are no giant fluctuations. However, we should all understand that the concept is solid and valuable, and the circumstances of today will certainly not be the circumstances of tomorrow. Wealthy areas of Canada that are experiencing good times now may some day not have those good times and this money may shift around.