Mr. Speaker, let me indicate at the outset that I look forward to splitting my time with my colleague, also from Nova Scotia, the hard-working member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.
I want to start my comments in this debate by picking up where I left off yesterday afternoon in question period, when I made a plea, frankly, in the form of a question. To be accurate, let me quote it:
Is there one Atlantic minister with the guts to tell his constituents that he will do everything in his power to fix the mistake?
I could have said “this betrayal”, but I said mistake, because notwithstanding some of the comments we have heard this morning, this is both a mistake and a spectacular betrayal of a commitment made by the current Prime Minister of this country, who not so very long ago, in a slightly different role in between his political careers, talked about building a firewall around Alberta. The real purpose of that was to communicate to Canadians that just maybe Albertans would want to say, “Let us keep all of the benefits of our resources and let Atlantic Canadians freeze in the dark”.
That kind of thinking went out in this country a very long time ago, so when the current Prime Minister decided to make a political comeback he had to figure out how to jettison that view of the world, that view of our Canadian world, which was going to haunt him forever. I cannot help but think that part of the reason why he championed the Atlantic accord, in addition to just grubbing for votes in an election, was to try to change his image, to try to change his reputation as a politician in terms of how he viewed the Canada that we have been trying to build for a very long time in this country.
That brings me to the point that he now is the Prime Minister of Canada and he absolutely committed to the Atlantic accord. One has to wonder what it is that now has changed his mind so that he has decided to basically break this promise.
What needs to be understood is what this broken promise is really all about, and I can tell members that it is understood in Atlantic Canada, but I believe it is also understood by people in the most prosperous and more populous parts of Canada. I am going to put it in Maritime terms. What it is really all about is that the Prime Minister and his ministers, including the ministers who are supposed to be representing the interests of Atlantic Canada, have decided to turf overboard the Atlantic accord commitment they made because they have other fish to fry and bigger votes to catch, to go after and grub for, in the more prosperous and more populous parts of Canada.
I think the Prime Minister should understand that in those more populous and prosperous parts of Canada there are also a great many Canadians of all political stripes, who think that, first, prime ministers should keep their promises and, second, the kind of Canada they want to live in is one where we actually try to find ways to ensure that those who are living with fewer resources and trying to get themselves out of the have not status should be supported. They think that this is the way we want to make Canada work better.
I think he should consider the possibility that there are a lot of Canadians who are going to take the view, whether they live outside of Atlantic Canada or not, that they do not approve of the broken promises and they do not approve of this attempt to block the very purpose of the Atlantic accord, which was to give the possibility and the potential, no guarantee but the possibility, that offshore resource revenues could actually help move Atlantic Canada out of a have not status. It is not just about Nova Scotia and Newfoundland either, because of course what impacts economically on our two provinces impacts on all of the Atlantic region economically.
It is accurate to say that Atlantic Canadians feel absolutely betrayed and that there is a sense of the Conservative government breaking faith with Atlantic Canada. Let me just quickly revisit where this Atlantic accord started. Credit should be given where it is due, but there are also political lessons from it.
Premier John Hamm, a Conservative premier, called together representatives of all political parties at the provincial level in Nova Scotia and then called together all political representatives at the federal level. I remember sitting in his office when he put to us the proposition that we work together across party lines and jurisdictional lines. We did that.
What the lesson showed was that when all parties work together for the common good, they can achieve things that some might have thought were ridiculous. I remember that the Liberal member for Halifax West dumped all over John Hamm's initiative even though he sat around that table and pledged that he would commit to it. He basically said that in the end we just were never going to get agreement on it.
Let it not be said that it cannot be done. Do not let them say that it cannot be done, because it was done, by respecting the fact that as elected representatives, whether we are federal or provincial, whatever party we represent, we share a responsibility to all of our citizens. That is why, in the few moments I have left, I want to make a plea that this debate not be about beating up on one another. This debate needs to be about fixing a problem.
This debate has to send a message, frankly, in part to the premier of Nova Scotia, to tell him to take a lesson out of his own predecessor's book and work across party lines and across jurisdictions to fix this problem. I think it is regrettable that on the three occasions I made representations, through my staff, to the premier's office to say that we would like to have a briefing on exactly where we are with the impact of this broken promise reflected in the budget, on those three occasions we followed up and no such briefing was ever given. There is no way on earth that John Hamm as premier would have failed to bring together the parties that still need to work together to fix this problem.
The second point is an obvious one: this is a minority government. That is the party, no longer the Progressive Conservative Party but the Conservative Party, that said the wishes of this Parliament should be respected, especially in a minority government. Let us be clear that part of how we got the Atlantic accord in the first place was through cooperation and collaboration. Second, in a minority Parliament, it should be easier to fix it. However, we think the government should step forward, take its responsibility seriously and actually take some leadership to say that this is going to be fixed.
I heard some members suggest that there is no real loss, that there is no real problem here, and that we are misrepresenting the potential loss to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador from this broken promise, so let me just quickly give an analogy. It is a bit like Mr. Smith being called in by his boss one day, being commended for the tremendously valuable work he was doing and being told that he is getting a bonus. He is very pleased.
The next year the company is doing very well, partly because Mr. Smith has made such a contribution to improving the lot of that company, and he is told that the good news is that everybody else is going to get a bonus this year because of his good work, but that he may not be as happy because he is not going to get the bonus. Mr. Smith says, “Wait a minute, where is the fairness in that?” He is told that he got a big bonus last year.
After arguing it out, the boss finally says to Mr. Smith that he actually can make a choice. Either he can give back his bonus from last year and get the same bonus that everyone else is getting, or he can keep last year's bonus and go without this year's.
This is an analogy that helps to give an understanding of what this choice is that the Conservative government keeps talking about and that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador should be happy about. It is analogous to the unfairness of what I have just described between a boss and an employee.
Let us use this opportunity. Let us not allow the Conservatives to say that it is too late. This is something my leader has said again and again when it comes to dealing with tough problems and things people say are impossible. This can be fixed. It is our responsibility to learn the lessons of history and work together to fix it.