[dismalaf]

> Alberta does not "pay into" equalization payments. Provinces do not "send money to other provinces". That's simply not how the program works.

You're being pedantic.

Income from Alberta workers gets taxed and sent to other provinces or citizens living in other provinces via various federal programs. If we were a separate country, all that money would stay in Alberta.

Splitting hairs over the precise "how" doesn't change the fact it's money siphoned out of Alberta to other provinces.

[stackghost]

>Income from Alberta workers gets taxed and sent to other provinces or citizens living in other provinces via various federal programs. If we were a separate country, all that money would stay in Alberta.

And you'd be incurring lots of new expenses like border controls, national security, etc. The last estimates I saw were that the total equalization payments attributable to Alberta were about a tenth of the cost of federal government services provided to Alberta.

That is to say Albertan taxpayers would be on the hook for an additional 25 billion dollars annually, or so.

>Splitting hairs over the precise "how" doesn't change the fact it's money siphoned out of Alberta to other provinces.

It's not pedantic, you're just factually incorrect. It's money that all Canadians already pay to the government (because it's money from federal income tax). There's no line item in the Alberta budget for "equalization payments".

If we deleted the entire Equalization Program tomorrow, we'd all still be paying the same taxes.

[dismalaf]

Since you don't seem to want to write in good faith here (or maybe you just don't understand, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), from the horse's mouth:

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal...

And federal transfers:

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal...

If you really don't understand why Alberta pays more per capita, it's simple. We have more net taxpayers paying more federal taxes per capita.

[stackghost]

From the link you posted:

>Provincial governments make no contributions to the Equalization program.

And:

>All Canadians are subject to the same federal income tax system and its progressive rate structure, regardless of where they live.

These both directly support my argument. I will make no further replies.

[dismalaf]

Your argument is against a strawman of your own creation that you're using to hand-wave away the actual topic.

If equalization is of no net benefit to anyone why does it exist? And why not just let Alberta leave?

The two links explain it anyway, for observers, and show federal transfer payments by province and per capita.

[jeromegv]

> If we were a separate country, all that money would stay in Alberta.

Yes. But you’d have to pay for your own border, army, customs, etc, etc.

By that logic every single province could separate, become a country, and then what? Is that supposed to be more cost efficient? Would the economy and free market between each province better? Would Alberta oil be worth the same price without having pipelines going through every province?

And then, why not have Calgary separate from Alberta. After all money from Calgary pays for roads in Edmonton and smaller towns. Surely we don’t want money leaving Calgary, if Calgary was independent, Calgary could keep its own money and not have their money “siphoned out”.

[dismalaf]

> Yes. But you’d have to pay for your own border, army, customs, etc, etc.

And? $45 billion of the Federal government's revenues come from Alberta. Another poster put the estimate of all these things at $26 billion. Sounds like an amazing deal.

> After all money from Calgary pays for roads in Edmonton and smaller towns

Municipal funds pay for roads, generally speaking. Provincial grants are only if it's proven that the road is essential infrastructure for the benefit of the whole province. The Federal government also gives grants from time to time.