Mr. Speaker, I have some respect for the parliamentary secretary. I served on the finance committee with her and I appreciate her work, but she betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about Atlantic Canada.
One of the things that has most offended Atlantic Canadians in the last year goes back to last year's budget documents where the government made it clear how it felt about the Atlantic accord. It suggested that the February 2005 arrangements to provide Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador additional fiscal equalization offset payments sought to address the severe fiscal challenges faced by those two provinces as a result of their high public debt, but were widely criticized as undermining the principles in which the equalization program was based.
The member spoke about previous fiscal arrangements like the Atlantic accord as being gerrymandered. There were other terms that got by me before I could write them down. She later used the terms disjointed and knee-jerk arrangements. That offends Atlantic Canadians and it absolutely shows what the government thinks of the Atlantic accord.
Does the member believe that the Atlantic accord, negotiated between the former Prime Minister and the premiers of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, was a gerrymandered, disjointed, knee-jerk arrangement?