BTW, to the Albertans whining about equalization payments... you are "Dutch disease"-ing our manufacturing economies with your oil, weakening the rest of Canada by pulling the dollar value up, making exports less viable. Canada started losing manufacturing jobs in 2004 (in the US, it only started falling in mid-2006) and it has not stopped yet. Look at what it did to Ontario. The very least you can do is pay some compensation for that.
no, but kidding aside, it is sad that manufacturing industry has suffered, but how is that alberta's fault?
I thought it was evident enough why, but I'll explain in detail.
It's called the "Dutch Disease" in economics. What happens is that a resource-fueled boom (oil in this case, natural gas in the original Dutch example) drives up the value of the currency. This happens because most of the resources are exported, and so there is increased demand for the local currency in order to purchase those resources. Since the currency's value increases, it makes manufacturing industries less competitive versus rivals in other countries, notably because workers' wages increase relatively to worker in other countries. For example, back when the Canadian dollar was worth 80 American cents, a Canadian worker earning 20$ an hour would be more competitive than an American worker earning 18$ US an hour, since 20$ CAN equaled 16$ US. However, with both currencies at parity, suddenly the Canadian worker earns 20$ US an hour. Thus making things in Canada costs now more than making them in the US. This not only hurts exports, but since it makes imports even cheaper, it also hurts manufacturing for local needs.
Hence, the resource-fueled boom in Alberta is hurting the rest of Canada, especially those regions that depend on manufacturing. Alberta's gain is the loss of every province without oil.
each provinces make do with what they have. we in the west have natural resources. you in the east have "culture", population and other resources.
and the following link says it all about Quebec's contribution to canada. http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/l_ian_macdonald/2010/08/05/14936591.html
your post made sense until you attacked alberta. why would you do that?
Call it a backlash, Québec bashing came first in this thread, from ktm525. I'm tired of Albertans whining, blasting especially Québec which, per capita, gets the least equalization payments of all provinces getting it apart from Ontario. Manitoba and the Atlantic Provinces get much more equalization per population than Québec does. Why blast Québec only?
Equalization payments aren't the only federal transfers either. In 1994, before the oil boom, Québec's provincial had revenues of around 44,6 billions, of which 40,2 billions came from provincial sources of revenues, around 4,4 billions from federal transfers. The same year, Ontario had revenues of 68,4 billions, of which 60,7 billions came from provincial sources of revenues, meaning 7,7 billions from federal transfers. Alberta? 18,9 billions in total, 15,9 billions from its own sources, 3 billions in federal transfers. Yes, it meant that Québec got less from federal transfers per citizen than Ontario, which in return got less than Alberta.* The oil boom changed the situation, and now Québec does get more per capita than Ontario (around 2 000$ to 1 300 $) and Alberta (2 000$ to 1 150 $)**, but claiming that Québec is leeching off Canada and has always done so is nothing but pure Québec-bashing, especially when you ignore that, by all metrics, the Atlantic provinces get much more out of the Federal government than Québec ever did.
*http://www.pum.umontreal.ca/apqc/94_95/blais/blais.htm in French, my own calculations from the data
*http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/govt56a-eng.htm For revenues per province and territory, I divided by population to get these results
So before the oil boom, Alberta was happily raking in the dough from the Federal government and had done so for decades. Suddenly, they get the oil boom and lots of riches but what was good back then is now evil and unacceptable?
