Mr. Speaker, one of the crucial issues in the budget bill, as it relates to Saskatchewan, is the issue of the fiscal capacity cap, which the government has chosen to impose. What is problematic about that cap is while it is very clearly imposed by the budget, it was never mentioned to the province of Saskatchewan as the intended government policy before the budget was introduced in the House on March 19.
The Conservatives' answer to that, when asked why they did not mention this rather important fact before the budget was introduced, is that they did not expressly promise not to have a cap. They did make that promise very clearly in Atlantic Canada in a widely circulated brochure that said there would be no caps. I guess Saskatchewan is not entitled to read a brochure that circulated in Atlantic Canada. It should only read the brochures that are circulated in Saskatchewan. Obviously, that is disingenuous.
The government members now say that they always intended to have a cap, they just failed to mention it, that was accidental and that was too bad. The Premier of Saskatchewan, the leader of the opposition in Saskatchewan, who by the way is not a New Democrat but a Conservative, the media, all the experts who have analyzed this say that the failure to mention the cap and then the imposition of the cap constitutes a betrayal, a demonstration of bad faith.
How can the government justify the fact that it did not once mention to Saskatchewan that it was fully its intention from the beginning to impose a fiscal capacity cap?