Try using more accurate examples?
Every province feels ripped off, and every province struggles to provide.
It doesn’t matter how accurate my examples are when you are going to twist them into a topic that I didn’t even address (corruption). You are either intentionally or unintentionally not following along if that is what you got from my posts. I used to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unintentional, but you seem smarter than that.
Every province struggles to provide but one province in particular has been punching above its weight class, while providing for others.
“Such occasional wrinkles aside though, the data shows that, as a percentage of GDP, taxpayers in three provinces contribute more in revenues than is later spent by the federal government: Albertans contribute more (by 6.1 percentage points) Ontarians contribute more (by 3.8 points) and British Columbians contribute more (by 1.7 points).” (Consider that Alberta has 4 million people, Ontario has 14 million people)
For the record, my example is very accurate. Quebec uses equalization money to finance their provincial government, which provides snow clearing and also subsidizes their municipal governments with that same money. There is no way that they aren’t using equalization payments for that funding. “ In 2009, equalization payments revenue was equivalent to 42% of the amount of revenues from Quebec’s consumption taxes and almost as much as Quebec paid in interest on it’s debt that year.”
Quebec doesn’t necessarily take the equalization payment and put it in an account marked “snow clearing” but there isn’t a road being paved, driven on, or cleared of snow in Quebec that isn’t subsidized by equalization payments. In fact, there isn’t a level of government in Quebec not dependent on the money at this point, which is why it was recently increased.
Is Quebec subsidized by the rest of Canada?: op-ed
“In dollar terms, the 2000 to 2009 average shows that Albertans lost the most, with a net loss of $3,852 per person annually in the federal taxing/spending equation. (British Columbians lose $666 per person and the figure in Ontario is $1,548.) Quebecois are net gainers, with $730 per person to the good, while Prince Edward Islanders have won the lottery, with $5,838 in federal spending per person, in their favour.
So Prince Edward Island (and other provinces in Atlantic Canada) is indeed more dependent on federal transfers than Quebec when measured per person. And the $730 per person balance in Quebecs favour may not seem like much but in 2009, Prince Edward Island had just 140,000 people; Quebec had over 7.8 million peopleor 56 times as many as Prince Edward Island.
That much larger Quebec population matters a lot to Albertans, British Columbians and Ontarians who finance Quebecs provincial government. In 2009, those population figures mean there was a $5.7 billion net federal transfer to Quebec. (In contrast, PEIs net transfers cost the rest of Canada $817 million.)
Perhaps Quebec can live without $5.7 billion every year (a number likely higher now), but in 2009, that was already equivalent to 42 per cent of the amount of revenues from
Quebecs consumption taxes ($13.5 billion) and almost as much as Quebec paid in interest on its debt that year ($6.2 billion).
That raises the question of how an independent Quebec would pay for any revenue loss. Last time, I checked, Quebec was not undertaxed. Regardless, no one, least of all anyone in Quebec, should buy the myth Quebec isnt massively subsidized by the rest of Canada. It surely is.”
