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Originally Posted by SeoulFire
Are there any other nationally shared benefits from resources? I don't really know - honest question.
If not, why is oil the special case?
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All natural resources are treated the same way by the fiscal capacity formula used to calculate equalization payments and contributions:
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Equalization payments are based on a formula that calculates the difference between the per capita revenue yield that a particular province would obtain using average tax rates and the national average per capita revenue yield at average tax rates. The current formula considers five major revenue sources (see below). The objective of the program is to ensure that all provinces have access to per capita revenues equal to the potential average of all ten provinces. The formula is based solely on revenues and does not consider the cost of providing services or the expenditure need of the provinces.
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The fiscal capacity of the provinces is determined by measuring their revenue from five general sources. Those revenue categories are:
Personal income taxes
Business income taxes
Consumption taxes
Up to 50 percent of natural resource revenue (see below)
Property taxes and miscellaneous
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Source: Wikipedia (because its so darned convenient!)
I would also note that the equalization program has been in place for over 60 years now, and in fact Alberta was an equalization recipient from 1957 to 1965.
I would further note that in 1982, Alberta was removed from the "national standard" calculation based on the argument that its resource wealth made it an outlier (the maritime provinces were also removed because they were seen as outliers). The net effect of this has been to significantly lower the "national standard" and to significantly lower the equalization contributions of the "have" provinces like Alberta and Ontario (until recently) and the equalization payments to the "have not" provinces.
So, clearly, the equalization program has all of the hallmarks of a Quebec/Liberal-engineered plot to steal Albertans' hard-earned petro-dollars (as some here have suggested.)
If anyone is interested in the basic characteristics of the equalization program, I highly recommend a short article by the Western Centre for Economic Research (based at the University of Alberta's School of Business) entitled "
Alberta and Equalization: Separating Fact from Fiction".