Where did you get that I'm "supporting Trump" or "supporting the GOP"?!?

The planet is getting cooked, but it's mostly not the First World doing the cooking (though we do "punch above our weight" there).

China is currently building a shit-ton of new coal plants. It'll soon be time to stick a fork in the planet. My next project is to stock up on good agricultural land in the Great Northern Clay Belt (not joking). I would prefer if it weren't a sound long-term investment, but I don't control that. Just playing the best possible hand (IMO) with the cards given.

At least Canada is in a decent position, it could be much worse.

Equalization is only one federal program, the 420 billion $ that article is talking about concerns all programs financed by the federal government. Alberta is not sending any money directly to Québec, but to Ottawa (and so does Québec). A person who makes 25 000 $ a year is not sending any more money to Ottawa than someone making 25 000 $ in Québec (ceteris paribus). A person making 100 000 $ a year in Alberta will send more money in Ottawa than someone making 25 000 $, but won’t be sending more than someone making 100 000 $ in Québec. Same thing for someone making 200 000 $, or 300 000 $ and so on. The reason Alberta is sending more money to Ottawa in all is because (thanks to oil) there are more people making 200 000 $ or 300 000 $ a year and more than they are in Québec. Alberta is richer and is therefore putting more to finance all of Ottawa's programs, equalization being one of them. Alberta also ends up paying a higher share of the military, of foreign affairs, of environmental programs than other provinces (including Québec). BTW, some of the federal government programs are subsidies to oil companies, so the province is also benefiting more directly from that money. So, overall, 2 billion dollars of equalization to Québec comes from Alberta (probably a little more since Alberta has more rich individuals) but Alberta is participating in the federal whole budget more than other provinces but even if Alberta was only contributing the same average as other provinces, the shortfall financially wouldn’t be easy but still would be quite manageable.

Even during the recent hard times, Alberta standard of living was still higher than almost everywhere else in Canada, it wasn't a depression by any way. It would have been nice from the federal government to help a little more, at least the most vulnerable people, but it would have been difficult to justify cutting social housing funding (or other social programs financed directly or indirectly by Ottawa) in poor neighbourhoods in Montréal, Vancouver or Winnipeg to help an Albertan meet his payment on his BMW (I know some people were in more dire situations, and they should have been helped). Even in an economic downturn, Alberta is still doing better than much of Canada, especially in wages.

The recent economic boom in Québec is more about innovative economic policies than mere welfare from Alberta. The 7 $ a day daycare permitted many women to be able to work after giving birth, giving Québec one of the highest employment rate for women in the world (and helping grow the GDP and the revenues of the Québec government enough to say that this program is pretty much paying for itself). More than that, it saves nearly a billion $ to Ottawa in tax credit because the bill parents can deduct from their revenues is minimal compared to parents from other provinces. With that money saved, Ottawa can buy, oh I don't know... a pipeline! Québec also invested a lot in education offering among the lowest cégep and university costs in North America. More diplomas means more people able to do higher paying jobs. It is starting to show. But the ROC is not losing at that game; newly graduated students are attracted to higher wages and lower taxes (same type of taxes that paid their education) in other provinces and move there giving said provinces (including Alberta...) new and very qualified workers for which they did not have to finance the education. That might be worth some equalization, right ? Québec also invested into diversifying its economy in modern sectors. Montréal is a leading hub in video games (which has great synergy with our heathy film industry) and is an important player in artificial intelligence, healthcare and aeronautics, as well as being a relative player in finance, manufacturing, and we are getting more and more investment in batteries for electric cars and in hydrogen. And we are in a very good position to transit to the electric car, which would reduce considerably or oil imports). Wages will start rising more rapidly (especially with the worker shortage) and soon our share of equalization will get lower (what would Alberta be complaining about, then?

Alberta could do things like that and even get rid of its deficit if it had a sales tax (if I said that in Alberta, I might have been burned at the stake...). I know Alberta is not only about the tar sands, but if its economy was more diversified, it would not have suffered as much when the price of oil dropped.

It's the first world (us) that provided the conditions for the third world to thrive (& pollute), and the second too. Now they want what we have - truth or popular myth ??

This could be one of the most well-informed posts I have ever read.

If we had a sticky for a post that new people should read before posting on a topic, this would be it.

I am honestly jealous that I did not write it.

Thanks !

Not everyone can be ToxiK ... :D:P

You are correct Albertans are wealthier therefore they pay more into taxes and therefore equalization. To conservatives that is considered ‘theft’. You missed a golden opportunity to also point out that Jason Kenney wrote the most recent equalization formula too. You’re good at pointing out flaws in conservative rallying points.

As for the recession here being mild: now you’re showing some outsider ignorance. Calgary’s downtown is still 30% vacant. Entire towers lie empty. In fairness oil companies have automated a shit ton and eliminated many positions but the impact from the downturn has been dramatic and long lasting. And just because some wealthier individuals retained their cushy lifestyles doesn’t do anything to negate the increase in homelessness and unemployment overall. Starting in 2014 until the last few years I would see panhandlers at the red light by the truckstop near my work in an industrial park every day. I’ve also seen a huge uptick in people begging outside suburban grocery stores. Many were women just asking for food. So no, it hasn’t been mild or whatever you’re claiming.

On the topic of diversification and specifically your examples of video games, television and EV batteries, AB also has examples of those. Montreal has Ubisoft, Edmonton has Bioware. Calgary just wrapped production on HBO’s Last of Us which is the biggest television production in Canadian history (our recent ghost town status DT may have aided post apocalyptic production), Prey on Disney plus was filmed here as was the recent Ghost Busters. Quebec may be gearing up to produce EV batteries, while Alberta is poised to become the lithium capital of North America. It’s a byproduct in oil wells and we have companies that are developing technology to extract it that doesn’t require massive, environmentally damaging settling ponds. Also we have local tech companies like Attabotics which is developing warehouse logistics robotics / AI systems which are hiring people from the oil patch. So diversification may still be too low here but it is rising.

I guess in summary the point I was trying to make was that while Quebec’s conservative streak is purely prejudicial against religious, ethnic and anglo minorities, Alberta’s is purely based on greed. So if you guys can use tricks to push discriminatory laws into place that go against the charter based on the perceived threat of Islam and the English language, then expect AB politicians to try and push their own agendas attacking their biggest perceived threat which is carbon taxes and regulations limiting our cash cow industry.

:haha::haha::haha:

The bulk of federal revenue comes from personal and federal income taxes, not transfers from provinces to the federal government. Albertans pay the same federal income and corporate tax rates as everybody else; if they pay more in these taxes per capita it's because individuals and corporations earn more income per capita. There's an overlap in the distribution of income between all provinces with some net recipients and providers of federal cash in every province.

A lot of the analysis on federal spending is similar, transfer to individuals according to rules applies consistently across the country (e.g. OAS with some provinces having more old people). Of the rest, a lot of the spending is money paid to buy services in a province, not money transferred to the province. For example spending $10 to buy a stapler in Ontario, which is not the same as sending a cheque for $10 to the Province of Ontario. Hence sums of tax dollars collected vs. spent in province don't mean much on their own.

I didn’t mentioned Jason Kenney because I think he is becoming (even more) irrelevant. The last economic downturn might have hit Alberta hard, but for a bad economic time it can get far worse. I mean unemployment got above 7 % a handful of times (pre-pandemic, of course). In comparison in Québec in the 40 years before 2016 unemployment almost never went below 7 %. Bad time in Alberta would have been good time in Québec. Office vacancy in Montréal is at about 14 %, not as bad as Calgary 30 % that you talked about, but still. But Calgary vacancy rate is not only because of diminution of oil production but also because a lot of new building spaces were added. It is not that the economy contracted to the point a now 30 % vacancy (I presume it was much higher a few years ago), but it is also because of new supply that were added and ended up not being needed. As for people suffering, I agree that they should have been helped.

Alberta would have a much easier time passing through this economic downturn (and helping people) if they had put more money in their heritage funds instead of giving tax breaks on checks to its population. It is not as bad as killing the golden egg laying goose but it is like not savings some eggs for when the goose dies of natural causes. In the 2008 crisis, the Québec government had the means to intervene in the economy to reduce the impact of the crisis. I know it is easier to pass through a crisis when everybody else is in trouble too, but the fact that Alberta suffered of the low prices of oil while Québec was seeing its economy going better than ever doesn't mean that Québec stole anything from Alberta.

Good to see Alberta starting to diversify its economy at a larger scale. A bicycle is usually more stable than a unicycle, and a tricycle more stable that a bicycle and so on. The more wheels, the better. I think you might have some competition from Québec in lithium. I don't know who might produce more lithium, but Québec will also be there in cobalt, copper, rare earth and graphite. Hey, maybe we could built a pipeline to get Alberta lithium from Alberta to Québec...

There is not attack in Québec against minorities. We differ from the ROC on how immigration should be handled. Québec believe newcomers should adapt to the society they immigrate to, Canada seem to believe that Canadians should adapt to the immigrants. In Québec, everyone is free to practice the religion they want to or speak the language they want, but we are not ready to sacrifice our language or culture to be more accommodating. We refuse to have to be force to work in English because some people refuse to learn French while living in Québec, and we refuse to sacrifice secularism because a minority of members of religious groups absolutely need to have visible religious signs while working in a position of authority. If you represent the power of the State, you are not representing your God. Anyway, most of those jobs require a uniform, and that uniform doesn’t include religious symbols.

When you say Alberta sends more money to Ottawa than any other province, do you mean per capita? Or the actual dollar amount?

Assuming that Quebec truly is as odious towards minorities as ROCers claim that it is, that still doesn't mean that Alberta would be on comparable, constitutionally solid ground with respect to the stuff that irks the people of that province.

ROCers truly are among the most open people in the world when it comes to other cultures.

But like any grouping, ROCers also have their particular hang-ups, and these are Quebec and the US.

In the case of Quebec, there is basically an irrepressible urge to play the "schoolmarm" with us that often borders on the pathological.

Likely both: per capita and by the metric of net flow. Alberta’s younger and has a somewhat transient population who’s likely to go back to their home provinces for retirement, so it is not hard to guess there’s less Federal spending there than average.

Haha! Because we’re just some podunk resource colony? You do know that Fort Mac is a tiny part of the north of the province right? You also know that our population has been growing steadily for decades. People move here to start fresh and plant roots. Most of my Ontario family moved here in the 90’s and never left. But sure, I guess the maritimers who go to work camps in the north and return home represent the other 4.5 million people in the rest of the Province. Calgary and Edmonton are just bunk camps for the oilsands 800 km away.

If anything the main retirement destination I’ve seen for Albertans is the Okanagan. Not due to family roots but a warmer climate and nice surroundings. Same with snowbirds in Phoenix.

Every province has a large, core demographic that is very similar from province to province in terms of age and workforce participation.

What makes up the differences between the provinces are the minority but still significant outlier demographics like Lio was referring to.

I find merriment in the fact that you think ROC means anything outside of skyscraperpage, or anything west of Sudbury.

Sorry.

Yet there are hundreds of tweets from Canadians in both English and French in the past couple of days that use the term "ROC".

It's actually a better term than English Canada or Anglo-Canada, IMO.

I know that some are highly allergic to any type of demarcation that opposes Quebec on the one side, and the rest of the country on the other, but the reality is that it does make sense in many respects - though not all of them of course.

And yes there are exceptions like Westmount and Shawville on the one hand, and Hawkesbury and Caraquet on the other. But cultural demographics are never 100% air-tight.

I don't think that "ROC" or "rest of Canada" in Saskatchewan or Newfoundland means "everything aside from Quebec". In my experience this framing tends to vary depending on the perspective of the person using it.

In different regions the conceptualization of the parts of the country can be radically different. In Quebec it's often presented as French vs. English with the complexities of coast-to-coast bilingualism swept under the rug at times. In Alberta a lot of people have a "West vs. East" attitude while the more extremist view is "economic engine oil and gas extractors vs. moochers". Places like Newfoundland or PEI can have an island mentality. In NS it's often "Central Canada vs. not Central Canada", and the idea of somebody from Saskatchewan putting them in an "East" bucket with Ontario is odd.

I've lived in 5 provinces and travelled to the rest of them, and I don't think most Canadians outside Quebec have this idea that outside of their own province the rest of the country is this somewhat uniform mass entity that exists as an opposite to their own province. And even where strong regionalism exists, there are always "allies" and no province is truly alone. Except for Quebec which for better or for worse tends to be in an "us against the world" mindset, at least in the Canadian context.

You do have NF and PEI (who also say "come from away") that have an insular mindset though not sure if this is vis-à-vis other parts of Canada or the rest of the world (the ROW!) in general.

I also do think that the majority of Canadians who do not live in Quebec also do view the country in ROC-Quebec terms, albeit subliminally. Though I think they'd be surprised to be given examples of how they do it and might even deny it.

When most Canadians who live in the parts of the country that function in English think of "Canada", "Canadians", and Canadian "things", by and large it's not Quebec references they have in mind.

I don't think it's malicious or mean-spirited. Just human nature.

Likewise, most Québécois don't think of Westmount or Shawville when they think of "Quebec" and the word "Québécois".

In fact, when one brings up Quebec, most ROCers (:P) won't think of places like Shawville or Westmount either.

Compared to the average province, yes, which is a very logical reason why AB's yearly net flow of money with Ottawa is negative.

Proving my point: the education of those Ontarians (who after getting that education, moved and turned into taxpaying Albertans) was not paid by Alberta. A phenomenon which, on a larger scale, is why it's perfectly normal that Alberta's taxation/spending cashflow balance with the rest of the country would be negative.


Again proving my point: those taxpaying Albertans who are choosing to permanently relocate to the Okanagan upon retirement, their old age healthcare isn't paid from Edmonton's coffers. Contributing to it being normal that AB would have a net negative cashflow balance. Good thing Ottawa "stole" some money during these Albertans' healthy income-earning years, so it can transfer that money to Victoria now that they're retired and are starting to cost a bundle in healthcare.

As you said, other places within the country have a warmer climate (and sometimes, are cheaper too). Alberta is quite bad bang-for-the-buck for retirees, let's face that. It's fairly high-cost, and it's isolated, and it has cold winters.