Quebec is a Drain on Canada, Pure and Simple
The BLOC’s leader made an asinine statement yesterday in relation to Canada being an artificial country. This coming from a province that receives almost half of all equalization payments in Canada.
Quebec consistently sucks funds from the rest of Canada, and has done so since equalization payments began. For the leader of a separatist party to complain that Quebec doesn’t get enough is not just ludicrous, it’s unconscionable.
If Quebec wants to leave Canada, I almost guarantee that it would fail as a nation, and become a drain on whatever country it called itself or belonged to. For example, a variable included in the equalization simulator measures the revenue capacity of Crown Hydro entities if they charged market rates.
“Quebec intentionally subsidizes rates, which drives down Quebec’s apparent ‘fiscal capacity,’the measure used to estimate a province’s ability to raise revenue. With the fixed growth rule removed,…merely raising electricity rates four cents per kWh (to match Toronto) drops Quebec’s equalization payment all the way down to $5.1 Billion from $13.1 Billion.”
Quebec has some gall, depositing some of the proceeds from the equalization payments into Quebec’s Generations Fund savings account, now at $11 billion and scheduled to surpass Alberta’s Heritage savings Trust fund in two years.
Equalization payments were meant to standardize service delivery across Canada, not to enrich a province that is less productive than it should be for the size of its population.
Quebec’s ”special status” is used by Quebec to take control of immigration, language and education, yet all Quebec does is whine that it doesn’t get enough.
It’s time that Quebec paid its fair share and stopped acting like the spoiled child of Confederation that it is.
Quebec residents pay 16.5% less federal income tax annually than other Canadian provinces yet maintains better levels of service.
“Quebec has received equalization money evey year of the program, totaling 221 billion dollars or 51 per cent of all payments. Quebec receives a larger proportion mainly because of the large population in Quebec, representing almost a quarter of the population of Canada. And from 2007, Quebec’s proportion of the total amount increased even more.”
As Paul Martin stated,
“Quebec’s separatists pusue political agendas as opposed to economic agendas”.
Quebec’s lack of productivity has led to a situation where Quebec has no incentive to increase its growth and productivity. It acts like a welfare recipient, feeding off more productive regions of Canada.
Maybe it’s time to cut equalization payments to Quebec. If productivity improves, so will the tax base, but currently, Quebec likes being able to feed off the rest of Canada, always threatening separation in order for Canada to be coerced into providing more.
Stop the gravy train.
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