It's a mess
Have I mentioned the I like Paul Wells? This is a great column on the mess being made of federal-provincial and inter-provincial relations, and of the natural problems built in to the Liberals big "priorities": immigration, cities, and federalism.
Ontario $23B more than it receives in federal-government services, and Newfoundland just got a $2B cheque to cover "shrinking equalization payments". McGuinty is mad that "an immigrant who lands in Montreal gets $3,800 of federal support, but an immigrant who lands here [Toronto] gets just over $800 in federal support?"
Wouldn't it make sense to scale back the money Ottawa takes from taxpayers and business and the money it doles out to the provinces (motto: "a handout is a handup")? There's only one taxpayer, so it makes no sense at all to have money go to Ottawa so they can give it back to our provincial governments so they can in turn offer us services. Since when are cities a federal priority? Leave cities to their residents. And don't get me started on equalization.
Redistribution on this level is a fatally flawed approach to managing a country's finances.
posted by jdp @ 9:41 AM
2 Comments:
At 12:14 PM,
Anonymous said…
What do you do when you have cities that are bigger population and budget-wise than some provinces? The city of Toronto has a bigger budget than Saskatchewan, and you're advocating that the feds just leave it alone?
At 1:59 PM,
jdp said…
I am. It doesn't make any sense for Saskatchewan taxpayers to see any tax dollars go to Toronto or any other city.
Yes they have a bigger budget, but they also have a bigger population than SK, so a larger tax base.
Ideally, the Feds should say "we are cutting business and personal income taxes, and if cities have a gap they need to cover, they can raise taxes or cut costs". It's simpler, cleaner, and it means that residents pay for what they get. I'd happily pay (slightly) higher property taxes if it meant a good income tax cut AND it was necessary. At least then you can have the debate in your own community and not in or with Ottawa.
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