The 'Logic' of Socialist Economics: 12 of 13 provinces* are 'have-nots'. Solution? Steal more from the 'have' province.

[yllus]

Fair equalization program needed: Layton

EDMONTON -- Alberta's energy wealth wouldn't ignite such envy and controversy if Canada established a fair and stable equalization scheme, federal NDP Leader Jack Layton said Saturday.

"I personally think it will do a lot of damage to our country if we start pointing fingers and becoming jealous," he told reporters while in Edmonton for a party fundraiser. "Let's work out something reasonable. Albertans are reasonable. People in other provinces are reasonable."

While acknowledging that some people "may try to whip up" emotions for political purposes, Layton would not comment on recent warnings by Premier Ralph Klein that Ottawa will try to siphon off resource revenues to assist other provinces.

Klein has told Prime Minister Paul Martin and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty that they should "respect the Constitution" and keep their hands off Alberta's riches. Ontario, long an economic powerhouse, is in debt and reportedly in danger of becoming a have-not province under the equalization program in which wealthy provinces contribute to poorer ones within confederation.

"I'm not going to comment on (Klein's) remarks," Layton said. "I'm trying to ensure we have a reasonable and calm approach to all this."

An improved equalization program would prevent the need for side deals such as the ones signed with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, Layton said. Under arrangements finalized earlier this year, those two provinces will keep their equalization payments plus billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues. But while calling for a fair system, Layton wouldn't say whether Alberta, which is forecasting a $7-billion budget surplus, should be contributing more.

Well, well, well. Isn't this a completely expected little policy of the NDP - when faced with a number of previously wealthy provinces like Ontario and British Columbia, don't acknowledge the decades of those provinces contributing to keep the rest of the country afloat and how it's nearing time for them to learn to swim a little better on their own. No, no, the best course of action is definitely to pull more money out of the resource-rich province of Alberta, coincidentally also the heartland of (conservatve) beliefs diametric to the NDP's.

So Ontario's in danger of going under. Well, it's nice to know that a couple hundred billion dollars of equalization payouts to the rest of the country were well-spent. I mean, sure, not every province is going to be a racehorse when it comes to economics, but do we have anything to show for all that time, cost and energy? And the socialist solution is to simply take more from the one province with its head above water?

* Actually 10 provinces, 3 territories. (Is Nunavut a territory or province?) Just being concise in the topic.

 

[eakers]

The fact is that Alberta is getting rich on everyone elses dollar as oil prices sky rocket. Ontario, BC and Quebec have had to support the maritimes and praries (when they have poor growing seasons) for long enough!

It is important to remember however, that the Alberta government is not the only one benefitting from oil prices sky rocketting. Econmists are pointing out that the government is pulling in almost double what they expected in gas taxes at both the federal and provincial levels leading to BILLIONS of dollars in surpluses. Whats better? We aren't seeing any relief at the pump nor are we seeing better healthcare or money for teachers. I guess it takes time for money to trickle down the pipe.. or not at all since nobody's really reported much on how much our gov't is hiding from us. :roll:

 

[glugglug]

Hmm, kind of sounds like the U.S. system in reverse:

blue states are taxed to provide welfare to red states

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: glugglug
Hmm, kind of sounds like the U.S. system in reverse:

blue states are taxed to provide welfare to red states

Rich people are taxed to provide welfare for poor people as well.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: glugglug
Hmm, kind of sounds like the U.S. system in reverse:

blue states are taxed to provide welfare to red states

Rich people are taxed to provide welfare for poor people as well.

apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why would that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

 

[Vic]

Heh. Socialism is like broke college boys arguing over who's going to chip in for beer and pizza, and how much.

 

[desy]

Hey Eakers
Readup on the National Energy Plan , the Homesteaders Act and the Crow rate and the Canadian national railway.
The reason the priairies have long been held down is by Eastern Canada's political agenda.
Ontario wanted it both ways, people on the prairies so they carted them out here by the boxcar load so the was something to join BC so it didn't go to the States and built a railroad and needed a market between the two. How much money is dumped into Bombardier again? Why do we pay shipping both ways ? on any commodity going out or anything coming back in?
The Canadian Wheat board makes it impossible for a producer to sell to a Pasta plant built right on the priairies any cheaper than moving the grain all the way to Ontario so jobs occur in Ontario, its been that way for a hundred years.
The priairies were Eastern Canada's little social experiment. My dad came from Denmark in the 50's 'not that long ago' when he arrived in Toronto he was handed a train ticket and shipped to Sask no choice whatsoever.
That is why Ontario had to pay for their force relocation of immigrants to this country.
Alberta was allowed to grow of their own avolution in 1920 pop of alberta was 200K , Sask 1 Million, today Alberta 3 Million Sask 1 million why? because people went because that is what the market demanded not a socially constructed experiment.

In order to farm Sask and Manitoba they forced you to live on the land, its why there is a house on every quarter section or was in Sask. People weren't allowed to live in towns and farm the land off site, that was engineered by Ottawa. Great econoimies of scale huh? And now that because of commodity prices, the prairies are finally getting the boot of Central Canada off of how we chose to spend our resource?
Goodale has 10 Billion budget surplus in the first QUARTER because of high energy prices.
Let him waste that before they come looking for more.
And if Central Canada doesn't like it? Well move here, we have lots of jobs for you just make sure you redraw the political map to accurately reflect rep by pop when you do.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

desy, I'm a bit confused by your last paragraph... BTW, where in Canada are you?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

As far as welfare bums, that I can agree on. Too damn many people living off of everyone hard work. A saying that I saw in the sig. of someone in OT:

"Go to work early and work hard today. Millions of people on welfare are depending on you!"

Welfare (many social programs) are overblown and too easy to cheat, period.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

 

[Corn]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

So, you gleaned that Zenardi is a redneck racist and a failure in life because its all the same to him whether his tax dollars go to red states or to some "welfare bum"?

Why are these kinds of disgusting personal attacks are allowed in this forum? The answer is all too obvious............

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

So, you gleaned that Zenardi is a redneck racist and a failure in life because its all the same to him whether his tax dollars go to red states or to some "welfare bum"?

Why are these kinds of disgusting personal attacks are allowed in this forum? The answer is all too obvious............

They aren't. They have been challenged by you.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: Vic
Heh. Socialism is like broke college boys arguing over who's going to chip in for beer and pizza, and how much.

LMAO :laugh:

 

[desy]

Sask
The Homesteaders Act required people live on the property they bought to farm it , what is called the home quarter. They didn't want people making large towns and what not cause then they start competing buisneses in food production etc and General Mills would have ended up in Regina instead of Missisaugua or wherever it ended up and manufacturing jobs were to stay in Ontario. Its why Ottawa subsidized grain movement 'Crow rate' for decades so value added plants didn't have to bear the cost of transporting unfinished product. There have been many other manufacturing incentives which made it illogical to place any type of value added manufacturing on the prairies.

So if you lived near a town you couldn't live there even if your farm butted right up against it. It is why Sask has a road every mile laid out in a perfect 1 mile by one mile grid over the bottom third of the province. 4 quarters in 1 mile by mile , one home quarter where somebody had to live.
Towns were also built every six miles cause that was as far as was reasonable to have a wagon carted in a day. It also worked for the railroad where the steam engines had to get more water every six miles on their way out to BC, see why you need people living on the priaires?
Sask has more road per captia than anywhere else in Canada pull out a grid road map sometime. With alll those farms on home quarters huge amounts of infastructure was built getting phone, power, natural gas to every one of those buildings every half mile.

Since then economies have changed and we still have a huge spread out infastructure to support. Its why when Central Canada complains about transfer payments to the prairies I get upset. Central Canada politics CREATED the priaires just the way they are. Alberta didn't have a homesteaders act cause their land was deemed to poor to have pulse grain and oilseed crops and were ALLOWED to simply put up fences and range cattle. IE the huge pop difference in 1920 and didn't have immigrants forced into farm labour to plant and harvest said crops.

 

[Cruise51]

1. Alberta is not the only "have" province.
2. Ontario pays far more in transfers than Alberta ever has.
3. The rest of the Canada kept Alberta afloat before the energy boom with transfer payments, guess they can just take those billions back, since apparently you didn't want it anyway.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

I dont quite understand your logic. You complain about corporate bailouts and then complain about unemployment.

Which way do you want it?

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: Todd33

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

Haliburton signs a contract to provide essential services to the country.

 

[0roo0roo]

they have energy? perhaps they could join the us

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: Engineer
apples to apples here. Talking about provinces (states). Not individuals.

Did you notice that $0.38 of every tax dollar that you (living in NJ) send to the federal government goes to another state?

I did. But why that upset me any more (or less) than my tax dollars going to some old fool or welfare bum that lives in my state?

I thought the left favored progressive taxation.

As if most tax money goes to welfare people, didn't that wives tale die when Reagen did? Do you get up in arms about your tax money being dumped into Haliburton stock? What about corporate welfare.. ah bailouts? How about defense projects that don't make anything useful? I see, your just another redneck racist who want to blame all your problems on them poor colored folks. Your failure in life and need to blame your fellow man is sad,

ooh, race card! havent seen that one in a while.


..

 

[sandorski]

Don't worry, the NDP has 0% chance of winning in a Federal Election.

Desy: I think you've been reading too many Conspiracies. The Homesteaders Act was designed to Settle and Develope the Prairies. The Canadian Government marketed the Act in Europe where anyone who wanted to Farm on the Prairie was pretty much gauranteed a goodsized peice of land, but they had to live on that land as part of the agreement. Also, if an Immigrant came to Canada under the Homesteader Act's lenient Immigration Policy, they couldn't just turn around and live in Toronto once they landed on Canadian shores, they had to fulfil their end of the agreement.

The Crow shipping Rate, though likely to have the effect of benefitting Ontario as you mentioned, was not designed to thwart Developement in the Prairies. Quite the opposite infact, the Prairies were too far away from Markets to justify their developement at all. The Crow Rate made Farming on the Prairie Economically viable. Even if secondary Industry was developed, it would have cost too much to ship those Goods to Market.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: eakers
The fact is that Alberta is getting rich on everyone elses dollar as oil prices sky rocket. Ontario, BC and Quebec have had to support the maritimes and praries (when they have poor growing seasons) for long enough!

Oddly, because of NAFTA the people of Alberta pay the same price for oil as does the rest of Canada and the U.S., barring I believe for some generally negligible costs due to transportation. They aren't getting rich on nothin'.

The government, of course, is a different story. Alberta as a province is doing great as is their right; and they fight to keep the money at their fingertips just as hard as Ontario, B.C. or any other province would in its place. We've always been a set of poor and rich provinces, but this really is going too far. This is welfare provision writ large. If people need to move out of the Atlantic provinces to survive, then perhaps it's time to do just that. Otherwise we all drown together.

Originally posted by: Cruise51
1. Alberta is not the only "have" province.
2. Ontario pays far more in transfers than Alberta ever has.
3. The rest of the Canada kept Alberta afloat before the energy boom with transfer payments, guess they can just take those billions back, since apparently you didn't want it anyway.

1. Today, there are two 'have' provinces: Ontario and Alberta. B.C. just went under and Quebec has been under for years. Ontario is now projected to go under in ~5 years.

2. Theft from one province doesn't exactly justify theft from one that's currently richer.

3. Before the energy boom? From the start of equalization in '57, Alberta's gotten a whole $92 million in incoming money. I wouldn't exactly call that 'billions'. I'm not even going to get into what the NEP did to damage western/central Canada relations under Trudeau.

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
they have energy? perhaps they could join the us

BACK OFF.

 

[sandorski]

BC should be a Have Province again real soon if not already, the BC Liberal government has done a good job getting things under control.

 

[desy]

Who said the prairies needed settling? thats right Ottawa. . . .
Its really not a good environment for growing crops, would have been better left to raise cattle. I work for the Fed Dept of Agriculture I can point you to many thesis studies showing that a lot of the reasons are social engineering not economics for populating the prairies.
Sask is now a have province as well now, stricly built on mining, and oil and gas our new number one commodity, not agriculture.

Conspiracy ? I don't think so just the cold hard truth.

"Sir John A. Macdonald?s National Policy had a three-fold agenda: to complete a transcontinental railway, to settle the prairies, and to create a manufacturing base in Eastern Canada. This policy was Macdonald?s solution to the problem of uniting Canada geographically and economically. Once this was achieved, it was thought, political unity would follow.
However, the National Policy became the source of considerable Western discontent. To Western Canada, the legacy left by the policy consisted of discriminatory freight rates and a resource-based economy that was subject to the boom and bust cycles of the manufacturing and financial sectors of Central Canada."History

Don't get me wrong I'm no separatist but to pretend most of the economic policies before WW2 'and post' greatly advantaged Central Canda is sticking your head in the sand.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: desy
Who said the prairies needed settling? thats right Ottawa. . . .
Its really not a good environment for growing crops, would have been better left to raise cattle. I work for the Fed Dept of Agriculture I can point you to many thesis studies showing that a lot of the reasons are social engineering not economics for populating the prairies.
Sask is now a have province as well now, stricly built on mining, and oil and gas our new number one commodity, not agriculture.

Conspiracy ? I don't think so just the cold hard truth.

"Sir John A. Macdonald?s National Policy had a three-fold agenda: to complete a transcontinental railway, to settle the prairies, and to create a manufacturing base in Eastern Canada. This policy was Macdonald?s solution to the problem of uniting Canada geographically and economically. Once this was achieved, it was thought, political unity would follow.
However, the National Policy became the source of considerable Western discontent. To Western Canada, the legacy left by the policy consisted of discriminatory freight rates and a resource-based economy that was subject to the boom and bust cycles of the manufacturing and financial sectors of Central Canada."History

Hmm, so because Ottawa decided the Prairies needed settling they are/were at fault for the settling of the Prairies?

There's a lot more to it than just Ottawa "wanting" it. They were correct in their thinking as the only way BC made any sense was that all Land between BC and Ontario also be part of Canada. Back then it was a commonly understood Principle that which country Settled and Developeed territory was the Country that had Sovereignty over that Territory. If Canada hadn't, the US or even Britain certainly would have.

It is now one of the Bread Baskets of the world. So your charge that it's not a good place to grow crops is rather suspect. It is a great place to grow crops and the Crow Rate made it economically viable. Sure, as I said earlier, the Crow Rate had an undesireable unforseen longterm effect, but it was the only way to make Agriculture viable in the region.