While a Conservative MP from Nova Scotia voted against the federal budget over the equalization issue, Saskatchewan's Tories went the other way — all 12 voted with the government.
 
Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey was ejected from caucus Tuesday after voting against the budget earlier that night. He'll now sit as an Independent.

Casey said he voted no in response to changes in the equalization formula that didn't deal with his province's concerns about oil and gas revenues. Equalization is the $12-billion federal program in which Ottawa makes payments to so-called have-not provinces.

Proposed changes to the program have been an interest of Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert over the past several years. Thanks to surging oil revenues, Saskatchewan has become a "have" province and has received next to nothing from the equalization program.

The Conservatives promised during the 2006 election campaign to take oil and gas out of the formula — a change that would mean an extra $800 million a year for Saskatchewan government coffers, according to Calvert, a New Democrat.

The government did exclude those revenues, but put a cap on equalization payments in its March 19 budget so that Saskatchewan ended up with $226 million in 2007 and nothing in 2008.

Earlier in the year, Calvert called it a broken promise and urged Saskatchewan's Conservative MPs to vote against the budget. However, the MPs all voted "yea" on the budget implementation bill Tuesday.

Saskatchewan's two Liberal MPs voted against the budget.