Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat difficult to take part in this debate following my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst. His passion and competence are very difficult to match.
First of all, I must congratulate my hon. colleagues from Atlantic Canada, and especially my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst for his credibility and his principles.
It is also important today to again acknowledge the incredible valour of another member in the House, the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, who yesterday made a very difficult decision to stand up for a principle he believed in and to take the consequences despite being assured publicly by colleagues that he would never be shunned by his political party or forced to leave the Conservative Party because he stood on principle.
We know in the House that it is never easy to take that kind of principled position and to suffer those kinds of consequences. Obviously today, we salute the member and thank him for his courage, but we do not relish it or take glee in it because his act was a reflection on a failure by this place.
It marked a very black day in the history of this country because in fact what we are dealing with is a development that will feed and contribute to even more cynicism and skepticism on the part of Canadians everywhere.
Who can believe in their politicians, democratically elected institutions and governments, when promise after promise gets broken? How do we encourage voters to take an interest in politics and exercise their franchise, when it all becomes so meaningless after the fact?
Voters in this country have been through too much on that front, whether we are talking about the past 10 or 13 years of Liberal government, who broke so many promises that we cannot even begin to count them, or whether we are talking about this most egregious broken word by the Conservative government today in terms of the Atlantic accords and, I might add, the Saskatchewan agreement. It is unbelievable.
It is absolutely beyond the realm of comprehension to think that our system would have degenerated to this point, to the point where we cannot count on anybody anywhere these days. We do not know who to trust.
When it comes to something as fundamental as the future economy of our Atlantic provinces, which have suffered through many years of economic ups and downs, despair, gloom and lack of hope, it was so important in this case to find a way to keep a promise.
Let us not lose sight of what actually happened. We are talking about an agreement that was made back in January 2005. The provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador reached a deal with the federal government on January 28 of that year to keep 100% of their offshore energy revenues.
Regardless of what has happened since, no matter how many studies have been conducted to find out how equalization should work in the future, we have to remember that this was a written accord with a government now that promised when in opposition to abide by the accord. Members of the Conservative Party in this place clearly stood on the principle of keeping an accord and an agreement.
They have condemned others in this place for not abiding by their principles or appearing to be watering down their commitments. It is nothing short of absolute hypocrisy on the part of members on the government side.
Let us not lose sight of what in fact we are trying to do today, which is to at least ensure that the government's word is as good as the paper it is written on, that in fact a bond between the federal government and two provincial jurisdictions that is written in the form of a formal agreement is kept. That is what is fundamental today. It is not just a matter of what is written down as an agreement. It is also what is stated as a principle and as a fundamental word between two jurisdictions.
Therefore, I also want to include Saskatchewan which felt that it had a deal with the federal government. It felt that it had in fact won a concession from the Conservatives that it would be able to hold on to its resources, its revenues from the oil and gas natural resources while it developed its economy.
That is what we are talking about, provinces that have asked for resources to ensure they can develop their economies until such time as they have achieved a status of economic certainty and well-being for all of its citizens.
Finally, I want to say that this whole can of worms is a result of political expediency and lack of courage going through many terms of government.
Let us remember how this started. Let us go back to the Liberals in the year 2000 when the issue of equalization was front and centre, when it was absolutely imperative and recognized as such that we resolve the question about a proper formula for equalization.
The Liberals had a chance when they were in government to fix this problem forever, but in the interest of political expediency, in the interest of wanting to put all of their money against the debt as opposed to building the provinces of the country and the economic livelihoods of people everywhere in the country, they choose to work, to vote, to act against Canada.
I want to go back to that date in the history of Canada. The House will know that back in the year 2003 there was an agreement between the provinces and the federal government on an equalization formula. There was unanimity.
Every province had agreed with the federal government on a proper formula for equalization, but guess what? The federal Liberals under the finance minister at that time, who is now the House leader of the Liberal Party, decided it was too much money, as they put $80 billion against the debt without the extra billion that was required in terms of equalization. Here we have two parties acting exactly the same--