For too long our province has wasted its time and energy complaining about how unfair equalization payments are to Albertans.
All the bellyaching in the world has not and will not make a difference. Hey, that’s because the deck is stacked from the start.
Imagine we did get a fair shake and weren’t relentlessly hosed in receiving way less from Ottawa than what we contribute to national coffers. But then simple arithmetic would mean the other provinces would have to pick up the substantial difference.
So let’s face it: no premier is going to tell his or her citizens it’s only fair they should give up some of their goodies just to make it fairer for those Albertans.
Pay up and shut up. That summarizes Alberta’s current place within Canada, as far as our dealings with Ottawa are concerned.
And it’s not just the current Liberal regime under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that takes us for this endless financial ride, although that particular bunch compounds the injustice by simultaneously lecturing us about curbing emissions from our energy industry, despite it providing them with so much cash, courtesy of Albertans’ corporate and personal federal tax payments.
No, the federal Conservatives – a party most folk in our province have consistently supported in one form or another for decades - didn’t exactly make a fairer financial deal for Alberta a top priority when forming a government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a fellow who calls Calgary home.
Those Tories weren’t about to upset that equalization applecart and thereby jeopardize seats in other parts of Canada. (Hey, ever think your vote’s taken for granted?)
And yes, it’s those House of Commons seats that hold the key.
Money follows power in this country and power derives from the number of MPs each province sends to Ottawa. The more you send, the more influence a province acquires. It’s that simple.
But here, too, Alberta is getting short-changed. In fact, we might be getting a worse deal on the political equalization front than on the financial one.
Every 10 years Ottawa redistributes the number of MPs each province is allotted, taking into account changes in population.
So, the relentless number of people that keep flooding into Wild Rose land meant we nabbed an extra three seats on that last recount, raising our total to 37, for whenever the next federal election rolls around.
But that’s still thin gruel because if Alberta, with a population close to five million, were given as many MPs to match the Canadian average, we’d be sending 42 MPs to Ottawa. And, given the flood of newbies that keep arriving, this ratio will only get more out of whack by the time the next seat re-do takes place in a decade.
Such blatant unfairness is due to a whole bunch of past deals that various provinces made with Ottawa – the Maritimes cut themselves the best bargain, although our neighbours in Saskatchewan grabbed a sweetheart deal as well. (Actually, Quebec pales in comparison, because I suspect you wondered.)
Regardless of who is winning, one thing is certain: Alberta is getting shafted.
And, unlike the equalization payment arguments that are clouded in all types of financial accounting – number of federal employees, national capital spending projects, amount of EI recipients, health care transfer payments – this is as basic as it gets.
One man, one vote sounds sexist these days. Yet the spirit of that phrase remains a clarion call to fundamental fairness.
Why should an Albertan’s vote in a federal election carry less weight than any other Canadian? Now that’s an argument we can win.
