Have-What?

Not the least of the problems with the Equalization Program is the fact that Have-Not does not necessarily mean have not. Does anyone really think that any amount of data will tell us that Quebec is poor? Is oil rich Newfoundland poor anymore? Is Ontario? The reality is that this program is proof positive on a macro economic scale that welfare does not work. With the possible exception of at least initially NFLD and maybe Manitoba, it does not make any province improve or stop being poor. It has not done any better job of this than the Regional Development programs that at first were just for the benighted Maritimes and now are for every region.

 The best equalization program would be if all regions were equally liberal economically. Then we would have no use for this federal taxpayer's dialysis. A Confederation would exist (preferably without trade barriers) then made up of self sufficient provinces that only needed Federal help occasionally and only in an emergency. And all would contribute far more to the cost of Federal programs and projects and their improvement. Perhaps a start would be if the Maritime Provinces dispensed with top rates that effectively tax the wealthiest at almost 70%. Then, I predict (along the lines of when you tax less of it you get more) there would be far more wealthy people in the Maritimes who would buck up public services with revenues.

Unfortunately, even in this Mecca, there is a snake. No matter how better off the poorest get, the richer get richer and therefore the poorest would stay have not. In other words it's not have not it's have less.

The real solution is to just get rid of it (which I believe would not require any constitutional amendment thank God). But that would take a Federal Government with real cahones as it would deny "poor" Quebec some 11 billion dollars a year. In the meantime, I would like to say it's all a poverty trap but that's hard when most of the beneficiaries of it are not really poor.