[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Done with the circle jerk yet people?

In the end the entire federation thought good enough of equalization payments to enshrine them in the 1982 Constitution Act. And Flames in 07 that is an absolutely ridiculous assertion. Do you think that having massive disparities of services and programs across the federation is good for economic efficiency? Canada's equalization system is a unique and universally praised model around the world. Other federations and confederations have studied our equalization system with envy.

Why? Because it works. Now that said, it is a little broken right now thanks to that moron Paul Martin and to sky rocketing oil and gas prices where are putting pressures on the system in two different ways.

If anyone wants to have a discussion about equalization I'm all for it. Has anyone read the report by Al O'Brien (for DM of Finance in AB) on how to fix equalization? It's very good and likely to be controversial for some of the Alberta folk. I personally think it's very well done and I only have a couple of grievances with the report.

You can read it here: http://www.eqtff-pfft.ca/english/index.asp

This seems fair?

Canadian average before-tax household income is just short of $60,000. Alberta's average household income is almost $65,000, making it maybe 10 per cent above the national average.


...a look at after-tax income shows that in 2000, the average Canadian real per capita disposable income was $17,871, while Alberta's was $18,962, or about six per cent greater than the national average.


Albertans may be 40 per cent more productive than the rest of the country, but the difference in the paycheque isn't any more than 10 per cent.

And this

Part of that is so-called super-equalization. Because unemployment is low, Albertans are massive net contributors to Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. Mansell reckons this alone accounts for up to $3 billion per year

http://www.albertaresidentsleague.com/articles.htm#23