Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and address this motion today, which was brought forward by my leader. I have to say at the outset as an Albertan how proud I am to stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador in support of these provinces that are trying so hard to really benefit from the resources that so far they have not had the chance to benefit from.
I know that people in my part of the world understand how difficult it is to face a federal government that is intent upon raiding their resources, really, in a way that we have seen in Alberta before and that occurs as a matter of fact today in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
Just by way of background, I want to say that the member for Edmonton—Spruce Grove gave a great speech a little while ago and talked about the fact that Alberta for many years--and a lot of people do not remember this--was a recipient of equalization payments between 1957, when the program came into place, and 1965. But even if people know that, what they may not realize is that Alberta, as it received those equalization payments and as its revenues from the oil patch grew, did not have its equalization payments clawed back. Of course we discovered oil in Alberta in a big way in the 1940s. The first big find was in 1947 at Leduc, I think, and over that period of time as the revenues grew we did not have our equalization payments clawed back.
The point is that because we were allowed to keep both our equalization payments and the full benefit of our non-renewable natural resources, we were able to start to build some infrastructure and we were able to start to expand our economy so that eventually we became the wealthiest province in Canada.
That is what Albertans want for these other provinces as well. We want to see them get the full benefit of these non-renewable natural resources.
How do we do that? It starts with the Prime Minister keeping his promise.
He went to Newfoundland and spoke to Premier Williams on June 5 during the election campaign and said that he wanted Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to get the full benefit of their resources. But how do we get the full benefit of the resources if suddenly the equalization starts to claw back some of those equalization funds that we currently receive? Well, we do not get the full benefit. That is so obvious.
Now we have all that equivocation on that side of the House, where the finance minister says there was a misunderstanding. I can tell the House that Premier Williams and Premier Hamm do not misunderstand how equalization works. They know how it works because they have to rely on it so they can have the services that we in Alberta take for granted. So I just do not buy that for a moment.
What makes me even more angry is that today Newfoundland and Labrador in particular is in just the most dire economic circumstances one can imagine. I have been to Newfoundland several times. I remember speaking to a third year political science class at Memorial University once. I remember that after I spoke one young woman got up and was just really distraught. She talked about the fact that she would have to leave Newfoundland to find work. She knew there was just no hope of finding a job in Newfoundland at that point because the economy was in such tough circumstances. Let me tell the House that it is heartbreaking to see that.
As my friend has pointed out, Newfoundland today has an $800 million deficit. It has incredible depopulation in the outports. One sees many communities where homes are abandoned and people are leaving in droves. The infrastructure is breaking down. There is tremendously high unemployment, especially in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. It is an unbelievably difficult situation.
On the other hand, they sit on a finite amount of oil and gas that they need to develop as their chance to break out of this, and this government, instead of being generous at a time when the government itself is running some huge surpluses, although it tries to mask them all the time, instead of being generous and understanding and looking at what happened in Alberta and saying that maybe that would be a model for how to help Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, instead of that, the government says no. It says, “We are going to break our promise and deny those people the same chance that people in Alberta had”.
That is disgraceful, but that is what is occurring. I cannot believe that this government can sit here and its members from Atlantic Canada can defend this government on this issue. It is absolutely unbelievable.
As an Albertan, I want to see Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia get the same chance Alberta got 30 years ago. That is only fair.
As Canadians we believe in fairness. We all talk about that. We believe we should treat everybody the same way. If that is the case, then why is this happening today? Does the Prime Minister's word not mean anything? He says one thing during an election campaign when seats are on the line, and he knows it. He went to Premier Williams and said, yes, that they had a deal. Premier Williams in good faith believed that to be the case and letters went back and forth, or at least letters went from Premier Williams to the Prime Minister's office restating his understanding of the deal. However, there was no letter in response. Finally, a letter arrives many months later that has all kinds of conditions that were never agreed upon in the first place.
That is not bargaining in good faith. That is denying Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and the people of Nova Scotia a chance to really achieve what I think they are capable of achieving. We should remember this is a finite resource, a resource that will be utilized and then will be gone forever. It is their chance to take this and turn it into the infrastructure, the universities and the hospitals that are necessary to build a greater economy, so when the oil and gas is gone, they will have something else going for them. Newfoundland and Labrador has already lost the fishery.
What do we do now? We have to make this work, but when we start to put these caps on, all of a sudden we deny people the chance to aspire to their dreams. That is just so fundamentally wrong and so frankly un-Canadian. I am just in disbelief that the Prime Minister would take that stand with a province that is clearly the worst off province in the country today. It is unbelievable that would occur.
I probably do not have a lot of time left, but I will say a couple of words about some of the things the finance minister said when he spoke a couple of minutes ago. I believe the finance minister's heart is in the right place, but what we have heard today is a lot of doublespeak. He talked about the various streams of revenue and all that kind of thing. He talked about the Ontario fiscal capacity and things like that. When we boil it all down, the finance minister was saying that the government would let Newfoundland and Labrador get to a point in its ability to generate revenue to the same capacity as Ontario.
However, he was taking into account the money that Newfoundland and Labrador gets from equalization. Clearly, if we factor that in, then we do not get a true picture of the actual fiscal capacity of a province like Newfoundland and Labrador. What is important is not what they get through equalization. It is the ability of the province without equalization, without that support from the federal government, to generate revenue, jobs and a standard of living for people. It does not take into account is the huge amount of infrastructure that already exists in places like Ontario. That is not factored into these things.
The finance minister is disingenuous when he does not talk about these things. We are talking about two completely different situations. I hope people do not buy into the idea that when the province has the same capacity to generate revenue with equalization, that somehow means Newfoundland and Labrador would be just as well off. It is simply not the case.
It is time for the government to live up to its word. It is time for it to ensure that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have the same opportunities as the people of Alberta had a generation ago.