Legislative Assembly

able friend who has just vacated his seat, the Provincial Treasurer, Mr. Massey, who has been a tower of strength to both governments, a wonderful man, and Mr. Dennis and others to do a tremendous job on this. Our disabilities, our low incomes, the small population, our financial problems, the public services which bore so heavily upon a small population were all outlined. Then these were prepared.

Now let us take a look at these presentations which follow pretty closely the argument presented by myself, Mr. Farmer and others on previous occasions. We night here quote a few examples but I haven’t got these with me at the present moment so I will have to forego that. But I believe it was suggested in these presen- tations that we should have a special grant of not less than 8.6 million dollars and that would increase to fourteen millions in due course. Well I don’t know what hap- pened. We asked the Premier and his Treasurer what happened. They could not tell us, they can’t tell us, the press of this province is looking for that explanation, the people of this province are looking for that explanation ever since and we haven‘t been able to get it. We have been looking for an explanation and it is not forth- coming. The Minister of Finance brought in a statement here that he pulled out of the sky somewhere and said to us, “This is it.” This is what we are getting but his statement is far different from the statement presented in the House of Commons by Mitchell Sharpe, the federal Finance'Minister. When he was asked if it was ap- proved at Ottawa our finance minister said “no.” Surely they must be very naieve when they expected this House and the people to accept garbled statements of that kind. But the Premier came back boasting that he got 3.5 million dollars. He got a special consideration, special above what? Special above nothing, special above his famous skunk bounty. What was the formula that they used? Can he tell us? He can’t tell us what the formula was because he doesn't know. But they got some foolish formula which entirely ignored the province of Prince Edward Island and the needs of this province. They were going to brush us off in the September con- ference with practically nothing. What kind of an approach did the Premier make anyway? If he had made the fervent approach that he made at the Grit conven- tion up there perhaps we might have more favourable consideration. Newfoundland came off pretty well. Premier Smallwood left that first conference; he didn’t make a statement and he didn’t wait. The cat that ate the canary didn't have a happier look than was on Joey’s face as he left. Why? Because he got special considera- tion. They said, “You needn’t worry Joey, we will look after you; you have provided us with a large number of Grit members down in Newfoundland, so we will protect you.” And the little man in New Brunswick who is being VanHorned out of a job, the great friend of the Premier of this province particularly during the election cam- paign we are told, almost choked with emotion as he thanked the federal govern- ment for the great treatment that had been accorded the province of New Brunswick. Even our friend the conservative Premier of Nova Scotia must have put up a thun- dering good argument. He was received in a very decent way, but our man came back blowing about 3.6 million dollars after the October Session. “The best we ever received”, he said. Did he forget that the Diefenbaker government gave us 7.5 mil- lion dollars at one shot for roads alone, the same as was given to other provinces, the large provinces of Canada? Did he forget the thirty-five million dollars that was given to the Atlantic Provinces? We got 3.6 million out of that, and if it were not for the carelessness of a Liberal Government that was in power in this province we should have received seven millions at that time. They had a formula over there of course, and they met in Halifax. The Premier of this province at that time didn't take any interest in it. They had a number of formulas and finally got so badly mixed up in the formulas that they said let us kick them through the window, we don’t understand them ourselves, and we will divide the 836,000,000 among ourselves. It was twenty-five million at that time. So, Mr. Robichaud said, we will take 80% and Mr. Smallwood you take thirty, and Mr. Stanfield you take thirty and then they added them up and wondered if there was anything left, and they found there was 10% left. Well perhaps out of the goodness of our heart we will give that to Prince Edward Island. What happened? It was a disgraceful allocation, it was brought to the attention of the Liberal Government in this province and asked if he would agree and he agreed. As a matter of fact a letter of thanks went through to Ottawa for the great generosity and when the second part of that thiry-five million was provided again by a Diefenbaker government in this province Mr. Farmer and the Honourable Mr. Stewart, I believe was with us, we went to Halifax and I will tell you

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