Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozabald
Even if an individual lived and worked outside of Atlantic Canada and returned home to retire, they would have to have a place to live. Likely, they would be living off a pension and/or a RRIF. Those financial instruments are taxed and the province of residence would be getting their cut. Plus, they would be spending money to live; hence HST and other tax revenues to the province of residence. It's not like they are living for free and are not contributing.
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Retirees do spend some money, but since they (mostly) dont work, they dont produce anything anymore (economically speaking). So they are using services (food, housing, gas, government services and so on) but they dont help produce them. And with a worker shortage in many fields, it is a problem.
And one of the main sector where we need workers is healthcare, which is exactly the type of services older people use the most. I think we spend more medical ressources in the last 5 weeks of life than in the first 20 years. No, I dont remember the source for that (I read that a long time ago) but right now it shouldn't be very far from that ratio. So, Alberta has people during their most productive years, after people got their costly education, then the same people go back home to retire at the (very high) cost of their original province. That definitely is worth some equalization!