Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise before the House to ask the government a question in regard to the Atlantic accord. In particular, I am interested in the Canada-Nova Scotia agreement.
The agreement was negotiated after long discussion. I remember Premier John Hamm travelling around the country. I met with him a number of times, as did many colleagues. He had many meetings with finance officials, his officials and the prime minister to discuss a way we could take the offshore resources of Nova Scotia and maximum the revenue to Nova Scotians of those resources. Newfoundland and Labrador was doing the same thing at the same time.
Previous to these agreements, 75% of the revenues would directly benefit Nova Scotians, but the other percentages would go against equalization. The argument raised in Nova Scotia was that these amounts of money, which lowered our equalization, should be invested in the long term benefit to Nova Scotians.
We know Nova Scotia had a long stint of Conservative government, leaving them with huge debt, over $8.5 billion in debt. I remember Greg Kerr, the minister of finance, spending money on everything, leaving Nova Scotians with this huge debt. Finally, there was an opportunity to lower that debt and give Nova Scotians the services they needed and they deserved.
We had critical discussions in the House. I remember a first agreement was proposed. The Premier of Nova Scotia and the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador did not agree with it. Members of the opposition, the Conservative Party at the time, told us that everybody should be fighting for their provinces. I remember the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans saying that sometimes we had to put politics and partisanship aside and fight for our province.
Lo and behold we had an agreement. What it said was that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would keep 100% of their revenues from non-renewable resources for an eight year period, renegotiable for another eight year period. An interim cheque was given to Nova Scotia, an initial payment of $840 million, as I recall.
That money was paid against the provincial debt of Nova Scotia. That means Nova Scotia would get $40 million or $50 million of services a year for which it would otherwise have to be taxed, or from which it would have to borrow money, money that it saved by not having to make interest payments abroad on that money.
That was good news and we saw it was progressing. Then we had a change in government. The same Conservatives had fought for that accord. Remember the debate in the House. They said that we should even break it off from the other budget measures, that we should vote for it independently because they were so supportive of it.
In the first budget the Conservatives came out with there was a little line in the budget saying that the accord was not selling so well across the country, that it was a benefit to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador that the others did not have. Then in the next budget, all of a sudden Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador lost the Atlantic accord. They lost the provision in the accord that made the it independent of any other programs. If Nova Scotia's equalization went up, revenues from the accord would continue to flow. If there were other programs, such as child care, as had been done under the previous government, it would not affect the offshore accord. That extra money would come into Nova Scotia. Any money for infrastructure would be independent of the accord.
Then in the recent budget the premier was told he would have to make a choice. He had to decide if he would go with the new equalization formula, which would give him roughly $70 million more a year, or stick with his Atlantic accord. It was a poison pill to the premier.
Will the government reverse its decisions? Will it protect the entire intent of the Canada-Nova Scotia offshore accord?