Mr. Speaker, I suppose very narrowly what it means is that those who think the way our current Prime Minister does and apparently the way the whole Conservative caucus of the government thinks, except for the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley who had the guts and decency to stand tough for a commitment that he was part of making, there are those who really take the view that Alberta's financial good fortunes must have come about because it or its predecessors planted the oil in the soil which allows it to have tremendous resources with which to deliver important benefits and services to the people of that province so it would get us out of the supplicant role in which they want to try to place us.
However, there is no guarantee of that. The reality is that Alberta had a hand up by special measures that has allowed it to enjoy the level of prosperity it does now. The challenge to Nova Scotians, Newfoundlanders and the whole region, and I keep stressing that because it is a regional benefit, would be to use the opportunity that the Atlantic accord was intended to provide to make smart, long range decisions about how to invest those resources so that we are able to move from a have not to a have status.
There is a sense of pride involved--