Mr. Speaker, have I understood correctly that you are giving my colleague and me 20 minutes each?
It was worth a try. I will continue, Mr. Speaker.
This Thursday's opposition motion reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government has failed to live up to verbal and written commitments made to Premiers by the Prime Minister during the last election campaign with respect to the Equalization Program and the Atlantic Accords.
I do not think this is the first time we have talked about these issues. We in the Atlantic provinces are used to people making promises and then breaking them.
When the current Prime Minister was in opposition, he said that the Atlantic accord was necessary. At the time, the current Prime Minister pushed the Liberal government to sign the accord. The accord was signed, thereby giving Nova Scotia and Newfoundland the right to keep the profits from their oil wells and a promise that equalization and transfer payments would not be affected.
At the time, the opposition said that the Liberal government was wrong because it did not want to give the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan a chance. Now we have a government that thinks it has all of the answers and knows everything. They think that it is up to Conservatives in Ottawa to decide what is best for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, even though people like Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland, do not agree with their plan. Furthermore, former Progressive Conservative member John Crosbie, a former minister who is well respected by his counterparts in Newfoundland and Ottawa, is critical of the Conservative government's failure to keep its promise.
John Hamm, the former premier of Nova Scotia, and Rodney MacDonald, the current premier of Nova Scotia, do not agree with the federal government imposing a choice between the accord or equalization, not both, in its budget. It has to be one or the other.
And then we wonder why, in our country, the provinces are often upset with the federal government. It is because everything is centralized in Ottawa and everything is decided in Ottawa. It is because of things like that. The Conservatives should remember that in 1996, the Liberals decided to make cuts to employment insurance, not just in our provinces, but across the country. I am sure that the member for Cape Breton—Canso remembers this well. In 1997, few Liberals were re-elected in the Atlantic provinces. In Nova Scotia, there were none. The Liberals were wiped out. Now, the Conservatives—remember this—are going to be wiped out in the Atlantic provinces. The fact that there is finally a special accord for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the country's poorest provinces, is nothing for the Atlantic provinces to get excited about.
Having been kicked in the behind by the Liberals with their employment insurance cuts, a riding like mine is losing $81 million a year in employment insurance benefits, and people are having to go work in Alberta. They must leave their families, their wives and their children, who miss their fathers. The family is split up.
The Conservatives said that if they were elected, they would give us this and we would have that. The Liberals were scared of these promises and gave it to us in 2005. Now, the Conservatives are coming and taking it away. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, but it was just a little fluorescent light, and it ran out of power.
The light has gone out. They have lost the light again. That is what has happened in Atlantic Canada. Have we not suffered enough? We lost our fishing industry. It is not the fault of the people in Atlantic Canada that the fishery has been lost. The people earned their pay. They went fishing and they tried to earn income to provide for the needs of their families. In the final analysis, there were no more fish. All this has hurt them. Families have gone through many difficulties. In addition, the Liberals slashed employment insurance. They decided to punish fishers even more, and the Conservatives supported them. The only thing the Conservatives said was that premiums were too high and they would lower the premiums because companies were paying too much, but they could not give benefits to the workers. That is what has happened. Finally, there was an agreement. I have spoken about the fishery but the fishery was not the only issue. At Bathurst, in my riding, the Smurfit-Stone paper plant, an industry that had been there for 100 years, has closed its doors.
This week, UPN announced that the Miramichi plant will close in August for nine or perhaps 12 months and 600 people will be put out of work.
New Brunswick says that if Nova Scotia can straighten out its finances and become prosperous; if Newfoundland can do the same; and if New Brunswick can draw people back to their home province, perhaps it too will benefit. Perhaps New Brunswick could work with Nova Scotia if that province is more prosperous.
But no, the government is not able to give us a chance to establish a climate of economic development. It cannot give us that chance. It is not able to give us a chance to survive. I think, perhaps, that is the plan.
They want to crush us. They say that if we do not want to be crushed, we need only move to Alberta, where there is an abundance of work. They say our country’s economic system is working well. If it is working, it is in Alberta. I am happy for Albertans. I am not jealous of them. But we should not be obliged to leave our region. We have a right in our country to earn our fair share and to receive assistance.
If the provinces cannot help each other out within federalism, then what is the point? It is at times like this that we can see why the Bloc Québécois or Quebec wonders why it should stay in this country. They are given ample reason to say such things. When we are treated the way the federal government is treating us, we wonder what we are doing within a confederation, within a federation.
If this keeps up, we may have to form a Bloc Acadien. Then maybe the government will pump money to us, like it does elsewhere. We will not have oil wells like in Alberta, but we will have a pipeline that goes from Ottawa straight to Acadia. Maybe then we will not have 20% unemployment. Maybe then people back home will have work.
Does anyone think these things are pleasant? Does anyone think people are happy to see how the government treats them? It made a promise. It made a promise to Nova Scotia. It made a promise to Newfoundland. It signed the Atlantic accord, but it did not say it would take it away. It is acting like a grandparent. It thinks it knows everything and, as a grandparent, it is demanding respect.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs says that the Conservatives know they are doing the right thing, so why is the Premier of Nova Scotia saying that is not true? The Premier of Nova Scotia says it is not true. The Premier of Newfoundland also says this is not true.
The Conservatives signed an accord and contracts and these provinces want them to be respected. The only thing we are asking the Government of Canada to do is to respect these accords and respect a contract once it has been signed. It should not do what it just did. I hope the government will change its mind. An accord is an accord. The Conservatives should not breach this accord and force a member of their party to go the benches on the other side of the House of Commons. They should respect the accord and invite the member back.