Mr. Speaker, the fiscal stabilization program must be overhauled to get money to provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador suffering from serious loss of revenue.
Becoming a have province has been great for Newfoundland and Labrador. We became so because of the oil revenues and royalties, and the many thousands of workers and their families earning good incomes and living better lives because of it. It also meant that we no longer qualified or required payments under the equalization, the constitutionally-mandated program to address inequities between the provinces.
However, equalization does not help the sharp dip in revenues experienced by oil producing provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Saskatchewan recently exacerbated by the downturn in markets due to the pandemic. The fiscal stabilization program is aimed at that, but it needs to be retooled and upgraded with funding sufficient to address the serious financial crisis facing these provinces.
The Liberal government needs to step up now and fix the fiscal stabilization program to provide the needed help.