Mr. Speaker, let us deal with what my friend has said. Let us talk about the election and the leader of the Conservative Party in the election.
The leader of the Conservative Party campaigned the length and the breadth of the country, including in Atlantic Canada. He has stood by his word on every matter on which he campaigned, whether it be health care, the Canadian Forces or whether it be a new and fair deal for Atlantic Canadians. On each and every one of these issues, the leader of our party has stood and been counted. He has put out his ideas and he has been prepared to be judged accordingly.
With respect to a new deal for Atlantic Canadians, the leader of our party has been on record for some time pointing out very clearly that we are in favour of 100% of the oil and gas revenues from the offshore resources accruing to the benefit of the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador. That has been our position. It was our position before the election. It was our position during the election and it is our position today. We are unwavering. We will continue to be unwavering.
This party has never brought forward a concept of a cap, that in some way the economic prosperity of Newfoundland and Labrador should be capped or tied to the prosperity of another region. Who else in Canada faces that circumstance, where their way forward, their future is tied to the economic capacity of another region of Canada? That is not the way forward. That was not the way forward for Albertans and it is not the way forward for Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the province in which I live, many people who have made their way to Alberta, who are succeeding in Alberta, have come from Atlantic Canada. We are proud to count them among us. What we need in the country is to create more opportunity in Atlantic Canada so that those people can succeed, so that their friends and neighbours can succeed in Atlantic Canada and so that some of them, if they so choose, can go back and take part in a thriving, dynamic economy.
The way to do that is to give people access to their resources. I cannot imagine anything in the country that is more unfair than the people of Newfoundland and Labrador being forced to come before the Government of Canada and plead for access to their own resources. They are resources which those people brought to Confederation when they joined this country. They belong to them and they should be benefiting from them.
They should not face the hypocrisy of my friends opposite standing up and saying that they will be capped, that they will be time limited, that they will be limited in any respect in the development of those resources. That is not the Canada we believe in on this side of the House.