Mr. Speaker, earlier, my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry—our party's natural resources critic—said that the Bloc Québécois supports the bill in principle, but that naturally, we will have to study the contentious provisions in Bill C-15, just as we do for all bills. As she said, that is the case with respect to revenue sharing and the exclusion of revenue from coal bed methane in the Canada-Nova Scotia accord on offshore oil. I would like the member to comment on offshore revenue since he is, if I am not mistaken, a member from the Maritimes.
It appears that the Conservative government is acting against Quebec's interests because the equalization formula does not take into account all non-renewable natural resource revenue, and therefore penalizes Quebeckers.
I would like to know if he thinks that the equalization formula should include offshore resources. We know that the Conservative government had some problems with this issue after the former Liberal prime minister's government made some promises and signed an agreement with provinces that have natural resources. We know that Mr. Williams, Premier of Newfoundland, was very angry when the Conservatives failed to keep their election promise. The former premier of Saskatchewan decided to sue the federal government because of that. This is a very serious problem. One Conservative member even became an independent because of it.
I would like to know what the member thinks of this, and whether he thinks that the equalization formula should include offshore revenue.