When the billions flowed as a hefty budget surplus, Albertans didn’t mind subsidizing a better life for poorer provinces.
Petro-dollars helped Nova Scotia become the national leader in physicians per capita, gave Quebec students the lowest-anywhere tuitions, created unrivaled regulated daycare space in Prince Edward Island and gave New Brunswick the bucks to hire plentiful nurses.
So lucrative has the transfer of wealth become that, according to an excellent new analysis by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the less fortunate provinces now outperform almighty Alberta in delivering almost all services, including health care and the cost of post-secondary education.
In the good times, it was shrugged off as the price of Confederation. Easy come, easy go, it seemed.
But Alberta’s deep in deficit doo-doo — and it’s had enough.
[More]
Notes:
Apparently Don Martin is taking his pills again and is making some sense today. Now, if we would only tee off on that bobble head from Quebec (Charest) and point out how he has been holding up Harper for ransom year after year, embarrassing him at every point along the way and walking away laughing time after time.
“Quebec, which swallows 60 per cent of every equalization dollar, reaps an $8.4 billion fortune which has leapt 74 per cent in five years.”
Time to chop Charest off at the knees and if he screams “We’ll leave” Harper can scream back “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!”
Well it will come a day when Alberta will tell Quebec ” NO MORE” you have got your fill of billions of dollars and day by day Alberta is insulted not only in canada but internationally as well regarding to ‘oilsands.
For Quebec so deep in debt yet live ‘high on the hog’ paid for by other provinces tells me that Quebec has no idea how to balance a check book simply because they have been provided for for so many years that they feel that no matter what or how much they want will be given to them instantly.
They also know that if they don’t get what they want; they show it at the polls.
Even the Ontario lieberal government would like to have this whole federal cash hand-out program reviewed.
Will it ever happen? Not likely as all federal parties continue to kiss Qeebecks index finger hoping for votes.. General Wolfe must be turning over in his grave.
I have always maintained that taking from those who earned and giving to those that didn’t, is a form of corruption and the receiver is always the most corrupted.
The problem is that we Canadians have been giving our governments too much money. What I would dearly love to see is a constitutional amendment that decrees that all levels of government combined shall extract and spend no more than 20% of the nation’s annual wealth creation.
In times of national emergency government expenditures may exceed said 20% only if a national referendum approves of such an expenditure. The referendum must be held annually in cases where the national crisis persists. An example of such an extended crisis would be WWII.
Excellent idea, Joe. There should be a second clause in that law, though, that says the government cannot spend more than $x per citizen or the 20% (or some set number) whichever is the lesser.
It’s too easy for the government during good time to get the citizens used to bigger and bigger spending. It makes it politically impossible for that government or the next to bring things back into line.
As society becomes more complicated, more infrastructure is needed. You can’t create a law like that without screwing yourself down the road.
Well Cy the other way leaves you even more ‘screwed’ as the bureaucracy Creates an ever more complicated society. From observation cutting the bureaucracy cuts the clutter.
Every saving that technology has given us, all the extra GDP produced by both parents going to work, plus all the borrowing that has been done by governments, has been eaten up by more government. Regardless of how ‘complicated’ things get, there has to be a limit. No company can survive with 40 – 60% of its gross income going to administration. I don’t believe a country can either.
“As society becomes more complicated, more infrastructure is needed”
You mean like HRC ?
Society isn’t complicated at all. Society is the voluntary interaction of individuals. If governments stuck to protecting our fundamental rights instead of insisting on dehumanizing society we wouldn’t need our gargantuan bureaucracies.
“You can’t create a law like that without screwing yourself down the road.”
Can you provide some justification for this comment please?
You mean like HRC ?
Yes. You may be in a social position where you never need one, but picture yourself living in Saudi Arabia as a Christian. Think an HRC makes sense now?
Can you provide some justification for this comment please?
When everyone has a farm and doesn’t need an education (what do you need to know to milk a cow and sell it?) there is not much need for heavy government. When people don’t have a farm, require high education and work in highly specialized jobs, any shift in the economy could leave lots of people out of work.
Also, as we celebrate life’s “winners” in the media we are left with all the forgotten people they stepped on to get there. What should be done about them? What about those who didn’t crawl out of a rich uterus and cannot afford to go to college? 40 years ago it wouldn’t have mattered since such a person could just get a factory job. Today, there are no factory jobs.
So what do you do? Say “That’s the market, he should have tried harder” and call it a day? You could, and you’ll end up with a third world country. If not, then you could ask the “winners” to provide for life’s “losers” but why would they? You told them they can keep their winnings past x% and reneging on the deal will drive capital to nations more willing to bend the rules (e.g. Mexico, China). The only solution is to plan ahead and take what you need for society up front. Who, if not the government, would do this?
I agree with johndoe124, society is not complicated, individuals are complicated; always have been, always will be. Most people are much more interested in living their own lives than they are interested in rooting out negative thoughts dwelling in the minds of others.
I agree with you too Jen. Canadians in 9 provinces have been throwing $$ at the spoiled brat of Confederation for many years; the tolerance for ‘more of the same’ is over, life as the “Remittance Province” is over – Quebec needs a job.
And that’s because you can afford to look the other way. It’s also less risky to do so. If you stay out of it, no skin off your nose right?