Thomas Andrew Murray Kirk
Liberal
Mr. Kirk:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As usual I will bow to your ruling. I will say to you, if I may, and to the Minister of Finance that what I was trying to show was that in the past imaginative proposals have been put forward by previous Liberal governments, and I am trying to show that what we need in the maritime provinces is such policies rather than what I called a moment ago deficiency payments.
With that in mind I think there are several steps that could be taken which would be of assistance to carry out the purposes of the bill as outlined by the Minister of Finance. He said it is to authorize the payment of certain grants to the Atlantic provinces. In the course of his speech he spoke of the great
Dominion-Provincial Relations good it would do the Atlantic provinces, and he referred to the present unemployment situation.
I do not intend to go into details about the unemployment situation, particularly after the comments which were made this morning, but I would hope that some action would be taken or some policy developed which would relieve the present unemployment situation, improve the employment situation and bring about a higher per capita income to the people of the province rather than a higher income to the government of the province directly from the federal government.
I think one of the things that might and could be done by this government in these proposals would be to bring us up to date with respect to a survey of the natural resources of the Atlantic provinces, so we could make speedier use of our natural wealth and thereby raise the standard of prosperity in that part of Canada, and at the same time raise the income of the individual citizens. Another move we might make which would be of great assistance would be the development of an Atlantic provinces capital assistance fund for the purpose of financing those large projects which are essential for sound industrial development.