NO EQUALITY FOR SASKATCHEWAN IN EQUALIZATION FORMULA

“This Liberal government and the Prime Minister have said time and time again they want to alleviate Western alienation. Penning a deal with two eastern provinces while denying a western province the right to its resources and a like deal is hardly a step forward.”

OTTAWA – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville, condemned the Liberal government for its unfair treatment toward Saskatchewan under the equalization formula. Breitkreuz spoke to the Conservative Party’s motion to remove non-renewable resources from the equalization formula during a supply day where the opposition steers the House agenda by putting forth the motion for debate.

“Mr. Speaker, the lone Liberal MP from Saskatchewan knows firsthand the struggle for daily survival in Saskatchewan, yet all he can offer as support for the residents of the province are a few empty words about what the Government of Canada wants,” said Breitkreuz, referring to comments made by Ralph Goodale following a meeting last week between Prime Minister Paul Martin and Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert. “Oddly enough, what the Government of Canada wants is exactly what Saskatchewan wants, and that is fairness. So if we all agree on that, why is the Province of Saskatchewan being forced to beg this Liberal government for an agreement like the one just signed by Newfoundland & Labrador and Nova Scotia?”

The Atlantic Accord, signed by the federal government and the two Atlantic provinces, allows Newfoundland & Labrador and Nova Scotia to keep their off-shore oil revenues. By contrast, Saskatchewan, which has been denied a similar deal, is relinquishing to the federal government, revenues from oil and gas. Those revenues are then distributed among Canada’s “have not” provinces which use the money to facilitate, for their residents, public services such as health care. Saskatchewan, rich in non-renewable natural resources such as oil and gas, is considered a “have” province and will receive nothing in terms of equalization payments.

“By all real indicators, Saskatchewan is far from being a ‘have’ province,” said Breitkreuz during his speech. “It is not a knock to the people of Saskatchewan, but to high-ranking political officials like our Finance Minister (Goodale), who know first-hand the financial struggle of the province’s key industry, that being agriculture. Our beef, sheep and other producers have been ravaged by the BSE crisis and grain farmers have had to endure year-after-year of weather-related crop failures, most recently the frost of last August. Countless farm families have had to sell off their machinery, animals, land and homes because their input costs far outweigh their income. Yet, we are a ‘have’ province?”

In addition to speaking of the Province of Saskatchewan’s inability to fully fund its portion of farm safety-net programs, a problem easily remedied if Saskatchewan were able to retain its non-renewable resource revenues, Breitkreuz presented statistics comparing Saskatchewan to the “have not” province of Manitoba. Among those figures were surgery wait times – Saskatchewan has the longest wait time in Canada at 24.5 weeks, Manitoba the shortest at 7.8 weeks – and wait times for MRIs. Again Saskatchewan has the longest wait time at 25 weeks. Manitoba’s MRI wait time is 11 weeks.

“This Liberal government and the Prime Minister have said time and time again they want to alleviate Western alienation. Penning a deal with two eastern provinces while denying a western province the right to its resources and a like deal is hardly a step forward,” said Breitkreuz.

Breitkreuz’s speech, in its entirety, is available by clicking here . . .

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