Mr. Speaker, I understand the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance will be responding. I am very glad to hear that, because I know that if I ask a reasonable question I will get a reasonable answer.
My question is a follow-up from a previous question. At that time, I was trying to point out to everyone in the House that we are trying to understand the new Atlantic accord deal but it is difficult without a written agreement that we can check.
I pointed out and read from an article in the Halifax Daily News, saying that its interpretation of the agreement, based on the information available, was that the province will give up “all claim to all entitlements guaranteed in the Atlantic Accord”. I had planned to read from another article in the Chronicle-Herald, which basically said the opposite, but today there is a newer one that is even more the opposite.
I read these just to point out how confusing it is for those of us in Nova Scotia who are trying to understand this agreement and want to support it. We hope we can support it. We hope it is a good deal.
One newspaper, based on the information available, says that we lose everything in the Atlantic accord, while The Hill Times of October 22 states that “amendments will be introduced to reverse the amendments made to the Atlantic Accord in the 2007 budget”. That is everything we ever asked for. That is exactly what we want. That is exactly what we all have been asking for in Nova Scotia: that the amendments be reversed.
That is what The Hill Times article says, but the other article says its interpretation is that “the province...gives up all claim to all entitlements guaranteed in the Atlantic Accord”. We could not have two more opposite interpretations of the agreement. One says we lose everything, while another says we get everything back. I called both journalists. They are both well respected and they both said they wrote their articles based on the information they had available.
The problem is that there is no written agreement. I hope that soon we can have a written agreement, because we want to support this deal if it is a good deal. Again, though, one newspaper says we lose everything under the Atlantic accord and the other says we get everything.
I hope the most recent one in the The Hill Times is right. It says that “amendments will be introduced to reverse the amendments made to the Atlantic Accord in the 2007 budget”. That is all we have ever found fault with. The 2007 budget amended the Atlantic accord and changed the most important aspect of it, which is the way one calculates the payment of the Atlantic accord. The Atlantic accord said it will be based on the equalization formula that exists at the time the payment is calculated and the budget says that from now on the payment will be calculated based on the previous formula. It is a fundamental change.
If this newspaper article is right, then I will be really happy and I will go away. I hope it is right, but the other article says we lose everything under the deal. Does the parliamentary secretary know which of these media reports is right? He may not have seen The Hill Times article, but if he has, is it right? I hope it is. If there is no written agreement, is there a plan to bring one in soon, even before the legislation for the amendments comes in?