It's been a while since we had a good political discussion.
Quote:
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Mr. Courchene agrees. In a study presented to a federal committee in May, he argued that because Ontario has significantly higher wages than anywhere else in the country, it can afford to provide fewer services than elsewhere. "And for me, that's an ideal definition of a have-not fiscal province," he said.
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Huh?
So let me get this straight. People in Ontario make more money than "anywhere else" yet that makes them able to provide LESS services to Ontarians? Does that not sound like the most absurd view you have ever heard? They make more money, so they can buy less. WTF?
IF he had worded it as it probably is, he would be saying that "since Ontario has a 'Big Inefficient Goverment' and 'Highly Overpaid Unionized Workforce' that supplies 'public services', the majority of Ontarians are paid less than those supplying governmental services, thus it is 'an ideal definition of a have-not fiscal province.'"
How else can his statement be true?
Does Alberta ever complain about the price of cars, which are primarily built in Ontario by people in the CAW where, for example, "The base wage for GM's workers in Canada is $24.44 an hour.... "
link
$24.44 per hour BASE? That is a far cry from "According to the 2003 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, most Albertans in the Petroleum, Gas and Chemical Process Operators occupational group earned from
$31,600 to $141,400 per year. The average salary was $57,400 per year"
link That $24.44 base equates to $50,835.20 on a 40 hour week WITHOUT any overtime BASE. I read recently that the Autoworker industry had an average wage of $36 per hour, which translates to $74,880 per year.
Does Alberta "whine" about higher paying jobs in Ontario? Not that I have ever seen. Are Ontarians able to use their higher earnings to buy property in Alberta more readily than we can if they choose? Absolutely. When they move out here for jobs, and buy houses that drive the overall real estate prices up, does that help the lower paid Albertans when THEY want to get into their first homes? Not whatsoever.
Rouge, good post. The NEP destroyed Alberta. It took guts and a lot of hardship for our gov't and citizens to get our fiscal house in order. And now we should be paying out for that? Perhaps we should have just kept running deficits and spending freely and no one in the East would be complaining.
Come on. Oil will run out at some point probably in the next half century or century, and unless the revenues stay around and continue to diversify our economies into other sectors that will be long range, we will be back to where we started, or worse. The goof that wrote that article is a supreme example of why I will never EVER support opinions that you should penalize those that are doing well.