Everyone in Canada would be happy if one day our Atlantic provinces could fully benefit from their natural resources, everyone except the federal Liberals.
The Liberal attitude is as typical as it is senseless. There is no point pulling back non-renewable resource revenues from a have not province. This is an opportunity and it is a one time opportunity. It is a short term opportunity to allow these provinces to kick-start their economic development, to get out of have not status, to grow this short run opportunity into long run growth and revenue that will be paid back to Ottawa over and over again and that will benefit the people of those regions of Canada for a very long time.
This is what happened in the case of my province of Alberta. Alberta discovered oil and gas in the 1940s and 1950s, Alberta was a have not province. From 1957 until 1965, Alberta received transfers from the equalization program. Alberta was allowed to keep 100% of its oil royalties and there was no federal clawback. This is what allowed Alberta to kick-start its economy, to expand and diversify, to build universities, to advance social services and to become one of the powerhouses of the 21st century Canadian economy.
Of course the Liberals expended endless effort to limit the growth of Alberta's revenues, culminating in the experience of the national energy program. Now we see already, with this opportunity in Atlantic Canada, the same attempts to limit the opportunity. The Prime Minister's Ontario cap effectively limits the maximum benefit of the offshore resource to $452 per person in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After that, every dollar will be clawed back by Ottawa, no matter how many billions the offshore resource turns out to be worth.
The Prime Minister, before he was here, was president of a company that largely depended on offshore activity. Does he not understand that energy resources are finite, temporary and a short term opportunity? The provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia should be allowed, indeed should be encouraged, to improve the living conditions of their citizens and to use this to attract new long term businesses to replace the temporary opportunities provided by the offshore resources.
Instead, when the Atlantic provinces rejected the latest federal offers, the caps, the limits and the exclusions, the government engaged in a clumsy divide and conquer tactic, a tactic which gave away its obvious objective of holding back the development of the Atlantic provinces. It has tried to negotiate with one province and not the other, but both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have made clear that their positions are the same and that they want to be dealt with fairly and at the same time.
Whether we live in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Alberta or anywhere else, we are all Canadians. We all have a right to a better future. That future is not for the Liberal Party to decide to speed up or to slow down, to start or to stop. It is not to negotiate. The Prime Minister gave his word. The terms of his proposal were clear. Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia requested and were promised 100% of their offshore revenues without equalization clawback, period. There is nothing to negotiate.
What is at stake is the future of Atlantic Canada, an unprecedented and historic opportunity for those provinces to get out of the have not status that has bedevilled them for decades. What is at issue is very simple. It is the honour of the Prime Minister, and all he has to do is keep his word.