Mr. Speaker, in previous debates I have made the references to which the hon. gentleman refers simply as a matter of putting the current situation into some context. While the debt load in Saskatchewan is relatively low compared to most other provinces, at about 25% or thereabouts of provincial GDP, the fact of the matter is that the debt load today would be a much lighter burden if the course of events in the 1980s had gone in a different direction. That is just historical context.
That is not to say that Saskatchewan should not be entitled to all the benefits of federal legislation and federal programs like equalization and all the others. It is simply to put the matter in context. There is no argument being made here about punishing the province for the previous failures of a previous administration. It is simply to explain why some of that burden exists now 15 or 20 years later.
On the matter of the payments that were made to Saskatchewan last year, I am very pleased that those payments were made. I think Professor Courchene, who was referred to earlier, performed a valuable public service by doing the kind of analysis that he did in pointing out in particular the problem with crown leases and for last year a payment of $120 million was made in order to correct the deficiencies in those old calculations about crown leases.
I would also add that we made the commitment to Saskatchewan to keep that analysis of previous errors in calculation methodologies going and to bring it up to date constantly. In fact this year we will be making another payment to Saskatchewan in respect of that same problem, in the order of about $6.5 million more, intended to get rid of those old issues and to make sure that the excessive clawbacks to which the hon. gentleman referred are fully corrected.
On top of those corrections, we have added $590 million more because of the floor we have put under the system for this year. I hope that the good work of the panel will give us valuable advice about how to adjust this system for the future so old problems do not occur and that all provinces, including Saskatchewan, will be treated fairly based upon the panel's advice.