Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the economy of Saskatchewan. I am very proud of the investments the previous Liberal government made that helped the province of Saskatchewan to create that buoyant economic situation.
The issue here is not about the fine points of the equalization formula. Let us be clear about that. The issue here is that the Prime Minister made a promise and he did not say that promise was capped. He made a promise that Saskatchewan would see the full removal of non-renewable natural resources from the formula and that the benefit to Saskatchewan, given the high price of resources like oil and gas right now, would net back to Saskatchewan a benefit in the neighbourhood of $800 million per year.
The issue is not how one structures the equalization formula. The issue has become that the Prime Minister made a promise. Whether that promise was a wise one, a foolish one, a complicated one or a simple one, the fact is that he made a promise and that promise has been broken. Never once in the Conservative vocabulary did the word “cap” appear until it was published in the budget three days ago.