Mr. Speaker, in the House I asked a question of the Prime Minister, who had spoken so very eloquently about his budget being one that would bring peace to the provinces forever. That was not even close to the truth.
We have seen since then that many provinces do not agree with the budget, that many provinces have in fact spoken out very vocally against the budget. In terms of this peace forever more budget, four provinces are opposed to it and one province has even threatened to take the government to court on the budget.
I was a bit concerned about the flippancy with which my original question had been greeted. I wanted to ask the questions because the response from the finance minister about the lack of enthusiasm for his budget was a non-answer.
I and my fellow MPs in the Liberal Party are not the only ones who lack enthusiasm for this budget. On the very day the peace among the provinces budget was announced, many premiers let their anger at its unfairness be known. The Premier of B.C. accused the government of breaking promises with regard to the Pacific Gateway, for the pine beetle infestation and child care.
B.C. was so badly treated with regard to equalization payments that one had to wonder whether the B.C. Conservative ministers had any input into the budget. B.C. was denied equalization payments for the first two years because the federal government added property values to the formula. B.C. is known to have the highest property values in Canada.
Property values are no indicator of the province's wealth. Unless B.C. sells all of its crown land, the wealth is an illusion. As the premier of B.C. himself said, “property values in British Columbia went up by about 24 per cent last year”.
Housing and homelessness are major problems in B.C., even though the government had nothing in its budget about housing.
The risk of flooding in the Fraser Valley is the highest in 200 years. The threat of flood could damage farms, livestock and homes, not to mention the public health risk of sewage contamination of drinking water. The province has put up $33 million and municipalities have put up what they could afford. The dikes need to be raised and the riverbed needs to be dredged enough so it does not damage salmon habitat.
The Minister of Agriculture lives in that area, but there is nothing in the budget to assist with this urgent need for his region. He might as well be blind, deaf and dumb to the urgency of the situation. Once again, the government has left the province holding the bag.
British Columbia is not the only province affected. I want to quote what the New Brunswick finance minister had to say. He said:
If (the budget) was to fix the fiscal imbalance, as far as New Brunswick is concerned, I wouldn't give it a passing mark. I am a little disappointed considering how much money the federal government did have to work with in terms of addressing the various issues. And when we talk about the equalization formula, it represents approximately $42 million more. That's far short from what we hoped to receive.
Lorne Calvert, the Saskatchewan premier, had this to say:
What we have here is a broken promise; what we have is a betrayal of a promise made to the people of Saskatchewan.
Rodney MacDonald, the Nova Scotia premier, had this to say:
It's almost as if they want to continue giving handouts to Nova Scotians rather than us keeping our offshore accord, and that to me is fundamentally unfair.
I am asking a question about the fact that this budget was supposed to be the end of fighting among premiers. This budget has divided Canadians. It has divided provinces and—