Mr. Speaker, I rise in this debate to ask further about a question I raised with the Minister of Finance regarding the equalization changes that were made unilaterally by the Government of Canada in this year's budget.
These budget measures, which were buried in the budget, hidden, and found only by Newfoundland and Labrador government officials in examining the details, robbed Newfoundland and Labrador of approximately $1.5 billion in payments that it would have received through the equalization formula and offsets that were supposed to come to Newfoundland and Labrador under the Atlantic accord.
The Atlantic accord was the agreement between the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Canada, when the Progressive Conservatives were in power in the eighties and Prime Minister Mulroney was the author of that document on behalf of the Government of Canada, that guaranteed that Newfoundland and Labrador was to be the primary beneficiary of its offshore oil and gas resources.
That was a commitment made by the Government of Canada and a commitment that was reiterated by the current Prime Minister in 2006 when he was asked whether he would adhere to that principle. He said yes in writing that he would do that by making changes to the equalization formula to remove the natural resources.
Changes were made to that formula by the government and put into place about a year or so ago. These changes were designed to provide predictable and stable funding for provinces and to respect the accord. They were imposed by the Government of Canada and they were to provide and would have provided significant dollars to Newfoundland and Labrador.
In fact, since the government came to power in 2006, the equalization payments to Newfoundland and Labrador have now been cut in half. That would not have happened if the formula that was put in only a year ago had not been changed. This year alone, $414 million were removed from payments to Newfoundland and Labrador by the government. Over the next number of years that formula would reduce Newfoundland's payments by about a billion and a half dollars; $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Newfoundland and Labrador.
We voted against that. I voted against that. All of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party voted against that because we thought it was unfair and a dastardly deed by the Government of Canada.
I will read from the throne speech that was delivered on March 25 in Newfoundland and Labrador and read by the Hon. John Crosbie, former minister in the government that signed that deal. It reads as follows:
Buried in the 2009 federal budget is a deep cut in funding to one province and one alone: ours. The cut will cost us more than a billion dollars the province ought to be receiving from offshore revenues from an agreement negotiated by a Progressive Conservative Government a quarter century ago. Only a year after changing the equalization program to give it stability, they have changed it again to punish Newfoundland and Labrador.
The people of my province are outraged by this action by the Government of Canada. We expected the Liberal Party of Canada to support that. The reaction, unfortunately, by the Leader of the Opposition was very lukewarm saying in fact, when he first was talking about this, that “I'm not in the business of carrying Premier Williams' water”. Eventually he allowed the six Newfoundland Liberals on one occasion only to vote against the budget. However, on every other occasion, the Liberals from Newfoundland and Labrador and the rest of the country voted with the government and imposed this dastardly deed on Newfoundland and Labrador.
There is no justification for this and I would like the minister's representative to acknowledge that this was what was done by the Government of Canada.