Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to say that I am very pleased to be participating in this debate, but I have to say that like many, many people in my province of Nova Scotia and I think it is fair to say throughout Atlantic Canada, and fair-minded people across the country who care about broken promises and care about narrowing prosperity gaps, it is absolutely infuriating that we are having to have this debate today because of what this debate is about. This debate is about broken promises and a government that has completely betrayed a commitment that the Conservatives made when in opposition, that they made here by voting in the House of Commons, and they made on the campaign trail.
For those who are trying to follow the debate, let me make it clear that what we are debating is the Conservative government's abandonment of principles respecting the Atlantic accords, equalization and non-renewable resource revenues as articulated in a motion put before the House on March 22, 2005.
Without taking too much time to go back, because we have to move forward on this, let me just refer to that motion that was introduced by the Conservatives in March 2005. What a difference an election can make. The motion asked that the House call upon the government, the then federal Liberal government, “to immediately extend the expanded benefits of the recent Atlantic accord to all of the provinces since the existing equalization clawback on non-renewable resource revenues severely curtails the future prosperity of Canada by punishing the regions where the economy is built on a non-renewable resource base”. Let me just pick up on the word “prosperity”.
Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate that if my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore can get here from committee on time, I will be dividing my time with him.
Let me just say what my colleague, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Nova Scotia said on hearing about the betrayal contained in this week's budget. The NDP leader of the official opposition, Darrell Dexter, said that Harper endorsed the offshore accord when he was the opposition--