A rchive Date
[ 29-10-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Calgary/Link_Byfield/2004/10/29/690963.html
Equally idiotic
By LINK BYFIELD -- Calgary Sun
Fri, October 29, 2004
Federal-provincial negotiations are beginning to resemble the famous Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland, where everyone sings "Have a merry un-birthday," and nothing makes sense.
This week's national equalization powwow in Ottawa was so mind-bogglingly foolish it's hard to know where to start. Consider the blazingly ignorant assertion by reporter Scott Stinson in the National Post.
"One of Canada's bedrock principles," he solemnly intoned through his Mad Hat, is that "citizens in provinces with small revenues (should) enjoy a standard of living comparable to those in affluent provinces. The federal government has aimed to accomplish this lofty goal since Confederation by sending funding to the less wealthy provinces to bring them up to a national standard."
This is entirely rubbish.
Leaving aside whether such a goal would be "lofty" if it existed, the program equalizes provincial social services, not standards of living. The idea was not proposed (or even considered) in 1867 as Stinson imagines. Equalization was enacted only in 1957, and not added to the Constitution until 1982. And the foremost constitutional authority in Canada, Peter Hogg, says the 1982 clause is unenforceable if the federal government ever decides to abandon it.
Which it should.
In fact, equalization marks a blatant repudiation of the founding assumption that all provinces would look after their own social and economic development without national interference.
Since it began, equalization has siphoned almost a quarter-trillion federal tax dollars from Alberta and Ontario, and delivered it to Quebec, the Atlantic, the eastern prairies and the northern territories. In the process it turned them into economic backwaters by robbing them of any motive to improve themselves, in the same way that welfare and EI so often rob the able-bodied of incentive to find a job.
Manitoba gets 19% of its provincial revenues from equalization, the Atlantic provinces even more. They see this money as coming from "Ottawa," but in reality it comes from the successful provincial economies of Alberta and Ontario.
Now national payments will rise from $9 billion last year to $11 billion next year, and escalate by 3.5% annually thereafter.
The welfare provinces, especially Quebec, had wanted $15 billion a year right away.
After all, they argued, Ottawa taxed Canadians an "extra" $10 billion this year, so why shouldn't the welfare provinces get half of that?
It didn't bother them that not one dollar would have been sent to the Alberta and Ontario taxpayers who contributed the lion's share. But why would it?
Paul Martin replied that Ottawa needs the "extra" money for its new national day care program. More Mad Hatter talk. Daycare is 100% a provincial responsibility. So is urban development, another Martin enthusiasm.
Negotiations turned from foolish to furious when Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams stomped out. He said (if I understand him) that Martin has reneged on an election promise to stop "clawing back" 70% of Newfoundland's royalty earnings by deducting them from the province's Equalization welfare cheque.
"Our pride can't be bought!" declared the premier. No, not their pride, just their votes.
The problem with the whole equalization system (like most other federal "help") is that it severs rights from responsibility.
The welfare provinces feel they have a "right" to equal government programs and services, without an equal responsibility to pay for what they consume.
I know it's impolite in Canada to criticize welfare recipients, even those who don't need it.
But if we hope ever to downsize regional transfers to the much lower scale of other federal countries, we will have to start encouraging success instead of subsidizing failure.
We should help the welfare provinces pay off their debts, in exchange for them reducing social spending and business taxes.
This will increase the size and productivity of their private sectors, and help all provinces in time to pay their own way. And surely regional self-sufficiency is the whole aim, is it not?
Link Byfield is chairman of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy. He can be reached by e-mail at contact@citizenscentre.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to: callet@calgarysun.com Home Page
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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