Mr. Speaker, the member opened her remarks by saying that I doubted whether the budget respected the offshore agreement. I do not doubt it. I know it did not and that is confirmed by Professor Hobson of Acadia University, who said the cost to Nova Scotia was $1 billion by his estimate.
I read a letter to the editor in the Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia in which Hugh Roddis, president of the Kings--Hants Conservative Riding Association, was saying that Hobson was a Liberal and that he was just fighting the government. Then I saw the response that Hobson was a Conservative, and the last time he got politically involved was by giving a donation to this Conservative Party.
Premier MacDonald agrees that the government is not respecting the accord. The minister of finance of Nova Scotia agrees that it is not respecting the accord, so if I doubt, I am certainly in good company.
It extended for one year the decision or the poison pill that the premier has to take, and I understand that there is some negotiating of maybe some little side deals, more politics of division to isolate the Premier of Newfoundland and--