Yes, it can get worse.
To compound that tragedy, offshore oil--Voisey's Bay Nickel Company Limited is the largest nickel development in the world--is a non-renewable resource. An oil field can only be pumped dry once. A province has only one chance to get a project right in terms of jobs and in terms of economic rent that it might be able to generate from it. When it is gone, it is gone. We cannot say that we will fix the problem tomorrow because the oil and the nickel will not be there tomorrow. It is a non-renewable resource.
In the case of the massive development that will get underway at Voisey's Bay Nickel, it is not only subject to clawback provisions but it is subject to clawback provisions at a rate of 90:10, meaning that 90% will go to the federal government and other sources, such as the company and so on, and 10% will go to the province. Oil is a non-renewable resource and once it is gone, it is gone and we can never hope to have made any progress in terms of economic rent from it. Yes, jobs will be created but we will not get the kind of economic rent that we should be getting from our natural resources.
When we talk about the oil part of the Atlantic accord, it said that the Atlantic provinces were supposed to be the primary beneficiary of their offshore oil and gas development. Under the Conservative Party policy we would ensure that those provinces under the Atlantic accord would become the principal and primary beneficiary of the money that is generated.
However the equalization program, through its clawback provisions, counters that commitment by making Ottawa the primary beneficiary. Ottawa gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Is it any wonder that the Atlantic provinces have been screaming for a change to the equalization system? The term equalization is supposed to make one province equal with the other. It is not supposed to make one any better off. It is supposed to give a province a chance, through its resource development, to become an equal province with the rest of Canada but that is not happening.