Danielle Smith’s grievance tour finds a predictable scapegoat: equalization
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was midway through a rant on the inequalities of the federal equalization program last week when the gentleman seated to her immediate left began to exhibit signs of, let’s say, unease.
Ms. Smith was speaking in Lloydminster, Alta., at another stop on her summer-long grievance tour, Alberta Next. It is the offspring of a similar caravan of complaint organized by her predecessor, Jason Kenney, called The Fair Deal panel. They both have mostly served as outlets for Albertans, particularly those living in rural parts of the province, to complain about their lot in life in Canada and to air their views and opinions on everything from setting up an independent police force to opting out of the national pension plan.
Inevitably, the subject of the federal equalization program comes up.
“Alberta, year after year, has $20- to $25-billion that is siphoned out of our system to go to Ottawa so it can be spent mostly in Quebec but also in other places that vote Liberal,” Ms. Smith told the crowd from her bully pulpit.
“We have been watching this for years: $600-billion in the last 40 or 50 years that has been taken out of our province. You don’t think we’d be able to do a little more in our social spending if those $20- to $25-billion stayed here? You don’t think we’d be able to cut taxes a bit, if $20- to $25-billion stayed here?”
As she spoke, the gentleman to her left, fellow panelist and esteemed University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, took healthy gulps from a bottle of water. His throat was undoubtedly feeling dry as the Premier railed on about equalization, and how it robs Alberta to pay evil Liberals living elsewhere in the country.
You see, there is likely no one in Canada who has written more on this subject in recent years than Mr. Tombe. He’s completely debunked the myth perpetuated by aggrieved conservative politicians in Alberta that equalization is nothing more than a giant vote-getting rip-off scheme operated by federal Liberals for decades.
These diatribes, of course, conveniently ignore the fact that the same program was run in the same fashion by Conservative governments. This would include the 10-year reign of Stephen Harper, from the city of Calgary no less. But those horrible Liberals.
Mr. Tombe’s presence on Ms. Smith’s panel was a shock to many. He has never betrayed any political affiliation in his work. I don’t subscribe to the view that his participation paints him as a United Conservative Party devotee. Not at all. He is likely there as a public service. But it always had the potential to put him in an uncomfortable spot, as happened when Ms. Smith went on her equalization harangue, filled with the same misguided, sensationalistic and heavily biased claims, the hollowness of which he has exposed for years.
As Mr. Tombe has noted, the money used to finance the three major federal transfer programs – Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer and Equalization – are funded through federal taxes. Those taxes are the same for all Canadians, regardless of where they live or for whom they vote.
Ottawa collects more revenue from Alberta because the income level is higher there than in any other province. It is not taxed more. Equalization is designed to help provinces that don’t have the same economic power as their richer counterparts offer comparable health, education and social services. The idea is that quality of life shouldn’t be vastly different based on whether you live in Medicine Hat, Alta., or Lunenburg, N.S., or Gatineau, Que.; it should be roughly the same everywhere in Canada. That is the revolutionary idea behind equalization.
Because Alberta has such high incomes and a younger population, fewer Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security cheques get sent to the province as well. That also contributes to the inequity in the outflow of federal transfer dollars to the provinces.
It’s really as simple as that. Can the program be tweaked in some areas? Undoubtedly. Would a majority of the provinces want to see the program scrapped? Not a chance.
The program hasn’t always been the focus of such enmity in Alberta. The province’s greatest premier, Peter Lougheed, was an ardent supporter of equalization. He saw it as a way to build a fairer, stronger Canada – as a “crucial aspect of Canadian Confederation.”
But equalization has become a convenient piñata for conservatives in Alberta to smash away at. It makes them feel good. But no matter how hard they pound the thing, they’ll never be able to make it crumble and fall apart.
The only way they will escape it is by leaving Canada itself.
Gifted article: theglobeandmail.com |
