Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from New Brunswick has made some very, very good points. Let me point out again what was said this morning by the hon. member for St. John's East on the open line show:
We have a new equalization formula, a formula that was agreed upon by seven out of the 10 premiers in Canada. There is a cap on equalization; we can't do anything about that. I mean the cap is going to be there forever and a day possibly so we can't change that.
The member went on to say, “and the Atlantic accord is, unfortunately, not a perfect document”.
My impression was it was, or maybe it was not according to the Conservatives. We think it is perfect, at least as close to perfect as we are going to get. He went on to say that the accord is vulnerable on a couple of different fronts. The accord is affected by the price of oil and it is affected by whatever equalization formula happens to be in place at the time.
That is not true, because the whole point of the Atlantic accord, signed by my hon. colleague from Halifax West I might add, with the former prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, stated that future changes to the Atlantic accord would not affect equalization. If changes were made to equalization, the Atlantic accord would not be affected. It would be effectively insulated from those changes.
Now what they have done, according to independent economists like Wade Locke in St. John's, is they have proven that this new formula does affect it and even if they went to the old formula, it still affects it. The Conservatives stand there and say it is untouched. That is the crux of the issue. Independent economists, unbiased people, say that we will suffer as a result of this. That is what I put before the House of Commons today.