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Originally Posted by O-tacular
This would make my conservative father’s head explode. It actually made me laugh and takes the piss out of all the breathless claims that the tarsands are the economic engine of all of Canada. That said there’s no way the figure of transfer payments to Quebec attributable to Alberta is that low. This article from 2019 pegs AB’s contribution to Confederation at $420 billion over 11 years with the largest percentage going to Quebec.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...6ebdd0641/amp/
On a side note it has been very frustrating that since the bust in 2014 AB struggled to receive adequate transfer payments as our economy tanked while Quebec was booming. Visiting Montreal in 2018 was like being in Calgary in the 00’s boom years.
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Equalization is only one federal program, the 420 billion $ that article is talking about concerns all programs financed by the federal government. Alberta is not sending any money directly to Québec, but to Ottawa (and so does Québec). A person who makes 25 000 $ a year is not sending any more money to Ottawa than someone making 25 000 $ in Québec (ceteris paribus). A person making 100 000 $ a year in Alberta will send more money in Ottawa than someone making 25 000 $, but won’t be sending more than someone making 100 000 $ in Québec. Same thing for someone making 200 000 $, or 300 000 $ and so on. The reason Alberta is sending more money to Ottawa in all is because (thanks to oil) there are more people making 200 000 $ or 300 000 $ a year and more than they are in Québec. Alberta is richer and is therefore putting more to finance all of Ottawa's programs, equalization being one of them. Alberta also ends up paying a higher share of the military, of foreign affairs, of environmental programs than other provinces (including Québec). BTW, some of the federal government programs are subsidies to oil companies, so the province is also benefiting more directly from that money. So, overall, 2 billion dollars of equalization to Québec comes from Alberta (probably a little more since Alberta has more rich individuals) but Alberta is participating in the federal whole budget more than other provinces but even if Alberta was only contributing the same average as other provinces, the shortfall financially wouldn’t be easy but still would be quite manageable.
Even during the recent hard times, Alberta standard of living was still higher than almost everywhere else in Canada, it wasn't a depression by any way. It would have been nice from the federal government to help a little more, at least the most vulnerable people, but it would have been difficult to justify cutting social housing funding (or other social programs financed directly or indirectly by Ottawa) in poor neighbourhoods in Montréal, Vancouver or Winnipeg to help an Albertan meet his payment on his BMW (I know some people were in more dire situations, and they should have been helped). Even in an economic downturn, Alberta is still doing better than much of Canada, especially in wages.
The recent economic boom in Québec is more about innovative economic policies than mere welfare from Alberta. The 7 $ a day daycare permitted many women to be able to work after giving birth, giving Québec one of the highest employment rate for women in the world (and helping grow the GDP and the revenues of the Québec government enough to say that this program is pretty much paying for itself). More than that, it saves nearly a billion $ to Ottawa in tax credit because the bill parents can deduct from their revenues is minimal compared to parents from other provinces. With that money saved, Ottawa can buy, oh I don't know... a pipeline! Québec also invested a lot in education offering among the lowest cégep and university costs in North America. More diplomas means more people able to do higher paying jobs. It is starting to show. But the ROC is not losing at that game; newly graduated students are attracted to higher wages and lower taxes (same type of taxes that paid their education) in other provinces and move there giving said provinces (including Alberta...) new and very qualified workers for which they did not have to finance the education. That might be worth some equalization, right ? Québec also invested into diversifying its economy in modern sectors. Montréal is a leading hub in video games (which has great synergy with our heathy film industry) and is an important player in artificial intelligence, healthcare and aeronautics, as well as being a relative player in finance, manufacturing, and we are getting more and more investment in batteries for electric cars and in hydrogen. And we are in a very good position to transit to the electric car, which would reduce considerably or oil imports). Wages will start rising more rapidly (especially with the worker shortage) and soon our share of equalization will get lower (what would Alberta be complaining about, then?
Alberta could do things like that and even get rid of its deficit if it had a sales tax (if I said that in Alberta, I might have been burned at the stake...). I know Alberta is not only about the tar sands, but if its economy was more diversified, it would not have suffered as much when the price of oil dropped.