For point 1 : From my understanding, it is a bit more than not signing a piece of paper. Not participating in the signature of a founding document like a constitution seems like a good recipe to create resentment long term. If it was just an admin task to sign it, why not re-open that document for signature ? I’m not even judging the situation that lead to this, just the impact it has today.
For point 2 : While I don’t disagree that it’s a bit odd to have a party at the federal level that defend provincial interest, there is an underlying issue that lead peoples to vote for them. And no one is really interested to have this embarassing discussion 😅
For point 3 : I’m not knowledgeable enough to say if Quebec receive or give more, even if I doubt that this is a black and white answer
Not knowledgeable enough? Look up equalization payments then. Quebec gets the majority of equalization payments, and has gotten such for literally decades, because they’re considered a “have not” province. Like last year (2024) they got around $13 billion (52% of the total amount handed out) – from Western Canada, as the region that is historically termed “have” provinces (every province except BC, Alberta and Sask got money, those western provinces just ‘lost’ billions to support the rest of Canada). That money is no strings attached, which allows Quebec to do stuff like offer additional social supports, and then the people of Quebec get to look down their noses at the West, and say crap like “Why aren’t your education options cheaper? Peasants!”. Maybe they would be, if we could keep our tax revenue, rather than being forced to support Quebec.
Even more insulting, those payments are a result of the Constitution. If Quebec doesn’t want to sign, fine, don’t give them the Western province’s money. Or how bout those Bloc folks take a principled stance and just hand the money back to the West. They don’t agree with the constitution, but seem perfectly content to reap the benefits from it. They’re good with Canada so long as they can sponge.
This isn’t a new issue from the Western provinces. It’s been ongoing for decades. Even as recently as 2018, with Kenney and Moe in Alberta and Sask, when the formula was last renewed at the fed level, there were releases about how pissed the west was with it – the feds renewed it without consulting the provinces, and without any changes to address the issues the west has with it. I’m guessing you’re from back east, which makes it entirely fitting that you’re completely ignorant of the issues on this side of the country.
As for the resentment long term, imagine a bunch of kids at a party. One kid loses a game and throws a tantrum and refuses to play with the others any more. The other kids bend over backward to try and get that kid to calm the fuck down. The kid refuses, even after everyone’s tried bribing him / treating him better than every other kid there. He keeps disrupting things and being a pain in the arse. He takes other kids toys and plays with them, while mocking those kids. Who would want that kid back at the next party. Continuing to spoil them, just re-enforces their negative behaviour. Sure, there may be “reasons” to be a spoiled little shit, but at some point Quebec ought to grow up and look outside their own border. Resentment cuts both ways, and based on the realities of ‘today’, Quebec’s got a lot less to complain about than western provinces.
Like I listened to some of that debate yesterday. The gall of that Bloc guy being all “Carney hasn’t called me to consult on what’s best for Quebec, he can’t be trusted” is just lunacy. And that’s the sort of narcissitic self-centered dipshit that Quebec supports. Like if the fed was to consult anyone about Quebec’s provincial interests, it would be a meeting with the premiers, which is what happened. If some minority leader in the house, who refuses to treat national issues as national issues, wants to throw a hissy fit about how the people dealing with a crisis aren’t directly consulting with them in their self-aggrandized role… that leader should be tossed the hell out. Asking a national party, during a national crisis, with national support, to come bend the knee for some minority party with (quite literally) an anti-national agenda, is beyond ‘not helping’. And saying that stuff, and broadcasting it to the whole country, should be embarrassing for the people he represents. But people in Quebec are likely to be all “he stands up for us!”, similar to how dumbass Ford was able to get back in just by draping himself in a f’ing flag to distract people from the damage his govt does on the whole.
The ongoing gap between the “have” and “have not” provinces is an ongoing economic concern and cause of regional tensions. Much of the gap stems from huge differences in geography, population, and economic activity among provinces, which make any attempt to “equalize” these differences challenging. As shown in the table below, PEI’s population is less than 1% of the Canadian total, while Ontario’s population is close to 40%. Alberta’s GDP per capita is 41% higher than the national average while PEI’s is roughly 24% lower—Alberta’s GDP per capita is 185% that of PEI yet the average personal income in Alberta is 159% that of PEI.
However, the stated goal of equalization in Canada is not to equalize economies or ensure that economic outcomes are equal. As stated above, it is to “ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation”. Per capita data is central to measuring if provincial outcomes are comparable.
Quebec’s high provincial taxes account for its budget surplus, although without equalization Quebec would have had a deficit. Quebec residents pay the highest provincial tax in the country but the lowest federal tax. Quebec residents pay 16.5% less federal income tax annually than other Canadian provinces due to the Quebec Abatement. This lower direct income tax for Quebec residents is factored in when the federal government transfers (Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer and Equalization) funds back to the Quebec government.
Alberta Premier Kenney added that, since the inception in 1957 of equalization payments, “Quebec has received equalization money every year of the program, totaling 221 billion dollars or 51 per cent of all payments.” According to the Library of Parliament report, Quebec receives a larger proportion mainly because of the large population in Quebec representing almost a quarter of the population of Canada. It is much larger than most other equalization-receiving provinces, In 2007 changes were made to the equalization formula based in large part on the way the formula used property tax revenues as one of the factors. As a result, Quebec’s proportion of the total amount increased even more since 2007.
On February 28, 2001, Bernard Landry, Parti Québécois leader who took office as Quebec premier on March 8, said that it was “degrading” that Quebec was receiving an extra $1.5 billion in equalization payments in 2001 and that the province had been receiving these payments for over 40 years. Quebec received the “lion’s share” of the 2001 equalization payments. In 2000, Quebec economic growth was slower than that of the other six provinces that were also eligible for payments. Landry blamed the federal government for failing to redistribute “real wealth”, saying Quebec had been “short-changed” for decades because the federal government did not “spend enough in Quebec on research and industry.” Paul Martin, federal finance minister, said Quebec’s separatists “pursue political agendas as opposed to economic agendas” and this did not have the “beneficial results for their population”.
In 2017, the Coalition Avenir Québec said that since 2003, federal equalization payments to Quebec had tripled to more than $11 billion. The party’s leader, François Legault, found it “shameful”. In 2019, CAQ Finance Minister Eric Girard wrote in a Financial Post op-ed, argued reiterate the party support to “raise Québec’s potential GDP growth to two per cent in order to close the wealth gap with the rest of Canada and assume greater economic leadership within the federation”. He ended the article by stating “Someday, Québec will no longer receive equalization payments, and this will be a great day for Québec and Canada.”
Ps: i’m a french canadian from quebec, im also a plumber, so i see alot of people everyday. I have to either go to different houses to work or go in commercial, instutional buildings to build bathroom and stuff… anyway i see many different types of people. None of them talk about this, maybe the politicians do, but the common people don’t. No one gloat about how much money they stole from alberta, because they don’t know about that and they don’t care about that. Most of us are just trying to get to friday with enough energy to have some fun in the week-end dude.
Yep. “Oh it’s so shameful to take all this money, we need to tell the West to get fucked some more! It’s their fault that we need to take all this money!! We’ll just keep taking it for a few more decades, while also making more demands and getting preferential treatment. Oh, no, how insulting for us, we just keep taking more and more of that money! We don’t need this money for all the social programs that Quebec boasts about to others, even though without the money we’d run deficits!”
I get that the regular folks in Quebec are generally ‘normal’. That’s one reason the lopsided crap on the political level is so infuriating for us westerners. I mean, I gotta wait 3 f’ing weeks to see my family GP out here in Vancouver. I sure hope you all took my tax money to get equally stellar treatment back east.
Only taking into account the equalization in the calculus seems a bit limited, they are others factors that allow economic growth like access to cheap energy, transport, educated workforce, defense, etc…
Believing that so many peoples vote because they want to throw a tantrum seems shortsighted if you want to unite peoples and believe Quebec should be part of Canada. We give you money so you should just shut the fuck up won’t build a nation.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the equalization system seems fair, but the condescending tone won’t convince peoples to change.
What tone do you think the Bloc has when dealing with the rest of Canada, exactly? Which is more significant, some guy online having a bit of a tone – or a political party that’s getting a ton of votes in Quebec who is condescending / not willing to work with the rest of the country? I think on this one, me voicing frustrations online is the lesser of the two faults.
And I’m not saying take the money and shut up. I’m saying give us back the money because the system is unfairly penalizing western Canada and benefiting Quebec/Eastern Canada, and has been doing so for literally decades. I’m also saying, essentially, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. The Bloc happily bites that hand and attempts to disrupt / destabilize the nation. They are a separatist movement at their core. All the negativity people have for Danielle Smith’s antics are warranted in my view – and that goes 10x for the Bloc and Quebec. Smith may be ‘threatening’ referendums on unity, the Bloc’s actually gone further in the past, and it still overtly prioritizes “Quebec” over the country/national unity. A vote for the Bloc is as shameful as a vote for any other group looking to destroy Canada.
And it’s an online post. Not an attempt to build a nation. I see nothing wrong with expressing frustrations with the Blocs/Quebec’s entitled BS, especially when it’s thrown in our faces as part of an election campaign. Hell, there were already people in this thread who had no idea equalization payments were a thing, had no idea why Western Canadians are often pissed off at Ottawa/Quebec. Hundreds of billions of dollars over the years, unnoticed. At the very least, it helps to educate other people about the ‘reasons’ for Western Alienation, even if it simultaneously proves/justifies it a bit by highlighting how little the rest of Canada thinks about the Western half.
For point 1 : From my understanding, it is a bit more than not signing a piece of paper. Not participating in the signature of a founding document like a constitution seems like a good recipe to create resentment long term. If it was just an admin task to sign it, why not re-open that document for signature ? I’m not even judging the situation that lead to this, just the impact it has today. For point 2 : While I don’t disagree that it’s a bit odd to have a party at the federal level that defend provincial interest, there is an underlying issue that lead peoples to vote for them. And no one is really interested to have this embarassing discussion 😅 For point 3 : I’m not knowledgeable enough to say if Quebec receive or give more, even if I doubt that this is a black and white answer
Not knowledgeable enough? Look up equalization payments then. Quebec gets the majority of equalization payments, and has gotten such for literally decades, because they’re considered a “have not” province. Like last year (2024) they got around $13 billion (52% of the total amount handed out) – from Western Canada, as the region that is historically termed “have” provinces (every province except BC, Alberta and Sask got money, those western provinces just ‘lost’ billions to support the rest of Canada). That money is no strings attached, which allows Quebec to do stuff like offer additional social supports, and then the people of Quebec get to look down their noses at the West, and say crap like “Why aren’t your education options cheaper? Peasants!”. Maybe they would be, if we could keep our tax revenue, rather than being forced to support Quebec.
Even more insulting, those payments are a result of the Constitution. If Quebec doesn’t want to sign, fine, don’t give them the Western province’s money. Or how bout those Bloc folks take a principled stance and just hand the money back to the West. They don’t agree with the constitution, but seem perfectly content to reap the benefits from it. They’re good with Canada so long as they can sponge.
This isn’t a new issue from the Western provinces. It’s been ongoing for decades. Even as recently as 2018, with Kenney and Moe in Alberta and Sask, when the formula was last renewed at the fed level, there were releases about how pissed the west was with it – the feds renewed it without consulting the provinces, and without any changes to address the issues the west has with it. I’m guessing you’re from back east, which makes it entirely fitting that you’re completely ignorant of the issues on this side of the country.
As for the resentment long term, imagine a bunch of kids at a party. One kid loses a game and throws a tantrum and refuses to play with the others any more. The other kids bend over backward to try and get that kid to calm the fuck down. The kid refuses, even after everyone’s tried bribing him / treating him better than every other kid there. He keeps disrupting things and being a pain in the arse. He takes other kids toys and plays with them, while mocking those kids. Who would want that kid back at the next party. Continuing to spoil them, just re-enforces their negative behaviour. Sure, there may be “reasons” to be a spoiled little shit, but at some point Quebec ought to grow up and look outside their own border. Resentment cuts both ways, and based on the realities of ‘today’, Quebec’s got a lot less to complain about than western provinces.
Like I listened to some of that debate yesterday. The gall of that Bloc guy being all “Carney hasn’t called me to consult on what’s best for Quebec, he can’t be trusted” is just lunacy. And that’s the sort of narcissitic self-centered dipshit that Quebec supports. Like if the fed was to consult anyone about Quebec’s provincial interests, it would be a meeting with the premiers, which is what happened. If some minority leader in the house, who refuses to treat national issues as national issues, wants to throw a hissy fit about how the people dealing with a crisis aren’t directly consulting with them in their self-aggrandized role… that leader should be tossed the hell out. Asking a national party, during a national crisis, with national support, to come bend the knee for some minority party with (quite literally) an anti-national agenda, is beyond ‘not helping’. And saying that stuff, and broadcasting it to the whole country, should be embarrassing for the people he represents. But people in Quebec are likely to be all “he stands up for us!”, similar to how dumbass Ford was able to get back in just by draping himself in a f’ing flag to distract people from the damage his govt does on the whole.
Well that was a great read
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada
The ongoing gap between the “have” and “have not” provinces is an ongoing economic concern and cause of regional tensions. Much of the gap stems from huge differences in geography, population, and economic activity among provinces, which make any attempt to “equalize” these differences challenging. As shown in the table below, PEI’s population is less than 1% of the Canadian total, while Ontario’s population is close to 40%. Alberta’s GDP per capita is 41% higher than the national average while PEI’s is roughly 24% lower—Alberta’s GDP per capita is 185% that of PEI yet the average personal income in Alberta is 159% that of PEI.
However, the stated goal of equalization in Canada is not to equalize economies or ensure that economic outcomes are equal. As stated above, it is to “ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation”. Per capita data is central to measuring if provincial outcomes are comparable.
Quebec’s high provincial taxes account for its budget surplus, although without equalization Quebec would have had a deficit. Quebec residents pay the highest provincial tax in the country but the lowest federal tax. Quebec residents pay 16.5% less federal income tax annually than other Canadian provinces due to the Quebec Abatement. This lower direct income tax for Quebec residents is factored in when the federal government transfers (Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer and Equalization) funds back to the Quebec government.
Alberta Premier Kenney added that, since the inception in 1957 of equalization payments, “Quebec has received equalization money every year of the program, totaling 221 billion dollars or 51 per cent of all payments.” According to the Library of Parliament report, Quebec receives a larger proportion mainly because of the large population in Quebec representing almost a quarter of the population of Canada. It is much larger than most other equalization-receiving provinces, In 2007 changes were made to the equalization formula based in large part on the way the formula used property tax revenues as one of the factors. As a result, Quebec’s proportion of the total amount increased even more since 2007.
On February 28, 2001, Bernard Landry, Parti Québécois leader who took office as Quebec premier on March 8, said that it was “degrading” that Quebec was receiving an extra $1.5 billion in equalization payments in 2001 and that the province had been receiving these payments for over 40 years. Quebec received the “lion’s share” of the 2001 equalization payments. In 2000, Quebec economic growth was slower than that of the other six provinces that were also eligible for payments. Landry blamed the federal government for failing to redistribute “real wealth”, saying Quebec had been “short-changed” for decades because the federal government did not “spend enough in Quebec on research and industry.” Paul Martin, federal finance minister, said Quebec’s separatists “pursue political agendas as opposed to economic agendas” and this did not have the “beneficial results for their population”.
In 2017, the Coalition Avenir Québec said that since 2003, federal equalization payments to Quebec had tripled to more than $11 billion. The party’s leader, François Legault, found it “shameful”. In 2019, CAQ Finance Minister Eric Girard wrote in a Financial Post op-ed, argued reiterate the party support to “raise Québec’s potential GDP growth to two per cent in order to close the wealth gap with the rest of Canada and assume greater economic leadership within the federation”. He ended the article by stating “Someday, Québec will no longer receive equalization payments, and this will be a great day for Québec and Canada.”
Ps: i’m a french canadian from quebec, im also a plumber, so i see alot of people everyday. I have to either go to different houses to work or go in commercial, instutional buildings to build bathroom and stuff… anyway i see many different types of people. None of them talk about this, maybe the politicians do, but the common people don’t. No one gloat about how much money they stole from alberta, because they don’t know about that and they don’t care about that. Most of us are just trying to get to friday with enough energy to have some fun in the week-end dude.
Happy easter 👋
Yep. “Oh it’s so shameful to take all this money, we need to tell the West to get fucked some more! It’s their fault that we need to take all this money!! We’ll just keep taking it for a few more decades, while also making more demands and getting preferential treatment. Oh, no, how insulting for us, we just keep taking more and more of that money! We don’t need this money for all the social programs that Quebec boasts about to others, even though without the money we’d run deficits!”
I get that the regular folks in Quebec are generally ‘normal’. That’s one reason the lopsided crap on the political level is so infuriating for us westerners. I mean, I gotta wait 3 f’ing weeks to see my family GP out here in Vancouver. I sure hope you all took my tax money to get equally stellar treatment back east.
Only taking into account the equalization in the calculus seems a bit limited, they are others factors that allow economic growth like access to cheap energy, transport, educated workforce, defense, etc… Believing that so many peoples vote because they want to throw a tantrum seems shortsighted if you want to unite peoples and believe Quebec should be part of Canada. We give you money so you should just shut the fuck up won’t build a nation. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the equalization system seems fair, but the condescending tone won’t convince peoples to change.
What tone do you think the Bloc has when dealing with the rest of Canada, exactly? Which is more significant, some guy online having a bit of a tone – or a political party that’s getting a ton of votes in Quebec who is condescending / not willing to work with the rest of the country? I think on this one, me voicing frustrations online is the lesser of the two faults.
And I’m not saying take the money and shut up. I’m saying give us back the money because the system is unfairly penalizing western Canada and benefiting Quebec/Eastern Canada, and has been doing so for literally decades. I’m also saying, essentially, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. The Bloc happily bites that hand and attempts to disrupt / destabilize the nation. They are a separatist movement at their core. All the negativity people have for Danielle Smith’s antics are warranted in my view – and that goes 10x for the Bloc and Quebec. Smith may be ‘threatening’ referendums on unity, the Bloc’s actually gone further in the past, and it still overtly prioritizes “Quebec” over the country/national unity. A vote for the Bloc is as shameful as a vote for any other group looking to destroy Canada.
And it’s an online post. Not an attempt to build a nation. I see nothing wrong with expressing frustrations with the Blocs/Quebec’s entitled BS, especially when it’s thrown in our faces as part of an election campaign. Hell, there were already people in this thread who had no idea equalization payments were a thing, had no idea why Western Canadians are often pissed off at Ottawa/Quebec. Hundreds of billions of dollars over the years, unnoticed. At the very least, it helps to educate other people about the ‘reasons’ for Western Alienation, even if it simultaneously proves/justifies it a bit by highlighting how little the rest of Canada thinks about the Western half.
Are you discussing with the bloc right now? Just seems like you don’t get it. Enjoy election day :)