Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. members opposite for their overwhelming enthusiasm for having me ask a question.
The hon. member's speech is a thoughtful speech and it hits at the very essence of the debate here, that is, the argument that Saskatchewan should not be “penalized” by the counting of its non-renewable resources for the purposes of measuring fiscal capacity.
In the province of Manitoba next door, where the hon. member who just gave the speech resides and the hon. member for Provencher lives, Manitoba does not enjoy the same non-renewable resources as does Saskatchewan, which has oil, potash and a variety of other things which increase its fiscal capacity. The members opposite have been arguing, however, that Manitoba actually has a greater GDP per person than does Saskatchewan and that therefore Saskatchewan is, relatively speaking, impoverished vis-à-vis Manitoba.
Simultaneously they argue that, first, we should not have this panel the hon. member spoke about and, second, that we should just simply take non-renewables out of the equalization formula.
If we took non-renewables out of the formula, that would presumably precipitate Manitoba saying to take renewables out of the formula. It would precipitate Quebec saying to take renewables out of the formula. It would make all of the other provinces that have neither renewables nor non-renewables very upset because then they would be left with the fiscal capacity measurement burden.
Does the hon. member think that one of the things this panel chaired by Mr. O'Brien could actually comment on is whether the formula proposed by the proponents of the motion, namely, measuring GDP per person, should be a replacement or should be one of the things that should be commented upon in terms of measuring fiscal capacity for equalization formula?