Madam Speaker, I want to say how all members of the House reflect that this is an extremely serious issue. I, for one, and many, many others are looking to have it resolved. I will approach this from a slightly different point of view. I will take the seriousness and the discussion that has occurred not only over 10 days but over several months and several years since 1985. I will try to raise this to a different level.
A context for a resolution of this must be found. One of the things we have discovered in the last little while is that the devil is sometimes in the details and the angel is in the details as well. In order to provide clarity to all of this, because I think this is why we are in the situation we are in today, the issue here is that the language must be clear. I would simply ask if we can provide some clarity to the language. For the hon. members, the mover, the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the potential government in waiting, which all leaders of the official opposition are, could we get some clarification that is consistent with what the premier is asking?
I will say this. The issue here is not 100% of provincial offshore oil and gas revenues. Equalization is not oil and gas revenue. It is a public transfer provided through the people of Canada, and of course it is central to the issue that is important to the premier, and the offset formula and the other revenues that flow from it. What is unclear to me is that we are taking a general issue and we are not providing a technical framework to actually enable the ideal to be translated into a deal that fulfills the basic principles.
Would the Leader of the Opposition and the deputy leader actually entertain an amendment--because this could only be done by the mover--to first off provide a full and clear synopsis of the technical parameters which the Conservative Party of Canada would be able to offer the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia? Furthermore, in the spirit that Premier Danny Williams has shown, would they consider just simply sticking to the issue at hand? The premier has said that he wants to entertain discussions. Can we just stick to the technical issues at hand?