| HN Mirror

I'll try one last reply in the hopes that you're not just playing willfully ignorant here. Alberta doesn't send money but "Albertans" do. Sorry for not being insanely pedantic with my terminology. Critically the federal government then dispenses money to provinces, so even if we want to be clever about the source of money, when it comes back it goes to geographically bounded provincial coffers, not the pockets of citizens. When people say that "Alberta" sends money, they mean that Albertans pay money to the federal government and then federal government spends that money elsewhere. And those borders matter when that money is being spent. I send money to the federal government and the federal government does not spend money in the geographical area where it would impact me. I'm happy that a person in Manitoba gets a new hospital, but that doesn't actually improve my life directly. So when people say that Alberta sends money to other provinces, that's what they mean. That provinces are able to create things for their citizens that they would not be able to fund otherwise because they received money from other geographic locations. The net in-out transfer is the bottom line. The people of alberta send X billion dollars to the federal government every year and the federal government sends X-10 billion dollars back to the provincial government, because that 10 billion is going to other provinces. This isn't rocket science unless you're trying hard to misunderstand.

The point about Albertans paying more is that they have higher incomes, so they are subject to progressive taxation (same as everyone, you'd don't need to reply thinking you've made a clever point). A combination of oil and gas revenue and a relatively business positive environment have made it possible for Albertans to pay more in taxes because they earn more. This is a good thing, but the point of contention comes out of the fact that there is no incentive for other provinces to try and improve their "fiscal capacity" when they can instead backfill their lack of revenue on the backs of the provinces, like BC, that are net contributors. If other provinces were faced with the having to cut services, or figure out how to improve their economies, they might undertake the work of improving their economy. But instead they can defer the hard choices and let Alberta, and BC provide that revenue.

At the end of the day I do just fine as an Albertan. One day oil and gas will be less important worldwide and Alberta will have to adapt. Luckily our economy is already more diversified than say, BC, which relies on real estate for a bigger proportion of its GDP. Better hope that trading houses back and forth continues to be a productive way to structure an economy. And even more importantly, once oil and gas subsides and Alberta can no longer provide per capita incomes ~15-20% higher than the rest of Canada what does the equalization formula look like then? I think that a lot of provinces are going to suddenly find out that they were taking things for granted and the money tap just isn't there any more. We'll see what happens at that point I guess, I feel pretty confident that Alberta will be fine, and hopefully it will force the rest of Canada to make some painful choices that will be better for the country in the long-term. But its going to suck in the short-term.