Mr. Speaker, the member has posed this question in the House of Commons a number of times and he has posed it to the Minister of Finance, who is from the province of Saskatchewan.
As far as the equalization deal, which was struck by the Prime Minister and the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, that was fulfilling a promise which was made during the election campaign. Not only was the Prime Minister going to bring in a new deal for equalization across Canada, which he did, he had a further commitment on the offshore royalties that was set up in 1984 by the previous Conservative government but was never fulfilled to the letter. All the Prime Minister did, when he signed the offshore accords with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, was fulfill a promise, which had been there since 1984, on resources revenue that was theirs. They now will remain in the provinces to develop those have not provinces.
It is nothing extra special. Saskatchewan is a have province, and all Canada delights in that fact. The four Atlantic provinces also would like to be have provinces, and deals like this will set the stage for them becoming have provinces.