Josh Andrus - Project Confederation
$420 Million equalization payment to Ontario goes too far – Project Confederation calling for Constitutional Convention
Submitted by Josh Andrus of Project Confederation
Confederation is rigged against Alberta.
It’s never really been funny, but now it’s just getting sad.
Not only do we get denigrated and dragged through the mud by the pundits and politicians in central Canada, but they always find a way to take more money from us too.
The concept of robbing the west to pay the rest is just another proud Canadian tradition carried on from one Prime Minister to the next, and this week we’re back to the old favourite, equalization, again.
In theory, equalization payments are given to provinces with weaker economies to help them provide public services.
If a province falls below the national average, it receives equalization payments – these are the “have-not” provinces, while the provinces above the national average, like Alberta, are the “have” provinces.
Sidenote:
It’s a common misconception that the “have” provinces pay money directly to the “have-not” provinces.
That’s not technically true – everyone is paying money into and receiving money from the federal government’s pot, and it’s the net difference that determines whether you’re a payer or a receiver.
But, in practice, these are essentially the same thing.
Many on the left try to use this slight detail to claim that Alberta doesn’t pay anything at all, which is blatantly not true, so don’t let them be misleading about what is essentially just a definitional argument about what counts as “paying”.
Well, this week we found out that equalization is now so out of control, and so much money is being taken out of Alberta, that they literally had too much money to give out.
That’s right, they collected so much money from Alberta, that even after they’ve raised up all the “have-not” provinces to equal the national average, there was still money left over.
So, what did they do?
Give it back to hardworking taxpayers in Alberta?
No, don’t be silly, they gave it to Ontario.
But, isn’t Ontario a “have” province that’s supposed to be paying, not receiving, I hear you ask?
Yep, but they did it anyway.
The equalization program is now so ridiculously broken that they are giving equalization payments to “have” provinces too!
*****
Alberta had already been kicked in the teeth a few times this week by Ottawa – in particular regarding the so-called “just transition”
(Remember, that’s the federal government’s plan to transition our economy away from everything that pays for equalization).
Paying extra tax in order to fund equalization payments to Ontario must surely be the final straw?
Many economists say that little “quirks” like this just mean that the formula needs tweaking.
Some minor changes around the edges can make the system “fairer” for Albertans.
But, it’s funny how all these little “quirks” of the various systems in Confederation all seem to lead to Alberta paying more or other provinces receiving more.
There’s never a quirk that means other provinces receive less or Alberta pays less, is there?
What the economists fail to consider is that equalization isn’t just a mathematical formula that can be perfected.
It’s a political tool used by Ottawa to buy votes in certain parts of the country.
So even if these quirks aren’t deliberate, there’s no incentive for the politicians in Ottawa to fix the formula overall.
It’s simply not in their political interest to fix it.
The system is so ridiculously complex and skewed against Alberta that it just needs to be abolished altogether.
62% of Albertans voted to do exactly this in a referendum, but we were completely ignored.
So, now, we need a constitutional convention.
Constitutional reform is required to strengthen national unity and provide equal footing for provinces wary of federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.
The current constitutional order is designed to favour voter-heavy provinces, with no real defence available to smaller provinces.
A constitutional convention may be the only way to keep the country together.
Without one, inflamed regional anger will continue to divide the country, and the viability of remaining a single nation will continue to deteriorate.
Reforms are long past due.
If Alberta – and the rest of Canada – want to avoid Ottawa intruding on their constitutional jurisdiction, we need to pursue formal changes to the Constitution.
Might we fail? Yes
But, we will definitely fail if we don’t stand our ground at every stop.
Securing a constitutional convention will be a major focus of our work in 2023.
If you’re ready to get involved, please click here to sign up to volunteer.
If you can help fund our efforts and our ongoing activism work, please click here to make a donation.
It’s time to start fighting back!
Sincerely,
Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation
P.S. We started a petition to oppose the “Just Transition” legislation – if you agree with us that the program will do immeasurable harm to Alberta, please click here to sign it. And, if you’d like to help us fight for an end to equalization and push for a constitutional convention, please click here to make a donation now.
By Josh Andrus
Originally posted in the Western Standard
Parks Canada officials admit they failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which now pose a significant fire risk.
While Ottawa fixates on climate change rhetoric, their neglect of forest fire prevention has left Alberta’s landscapes vulnerable to devastation.
Last week, a shining beacon of the beauty of our province was partially destroyed as a wildfire burned through the picturesque town of Jasper. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.
Thankfully there has been no reported loss of life. But many people’s livelihoods have been wiped out. The question is how did this happen, and what could have been done to prevent it?
Smokey Bear’s famous saying was: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” And, in this case, proactive measures certainly could have made a difference.
Unfortunately, the entire federal government seems to have forgotten Smokey’s key point. Fire prevention on national park land is federal jurisdiction.
In 2022, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was informed that Parks Canada managers had not taken adequate precautions to protect the Town of Jasper from wildfires, according to documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter. At that time, Parks Canada officials admitted they had failed to conduct controlled burns of dead pine trees, which posed a significant fire risk.
“A mountain pine beetle infestation has brought significant changes to forests in Alberta, including Jasper National Park, with consequences for wildfire risk,” Guilbeault was informed.
Almost half of Jasper’s Whitebark Pine forest, 44%, was infected by beetles. However, few steps were taken to reduce the risk to the Town of Jasper with controlled burns of the surrounding forest, records show.
“Fire has not yet been applied for Whitebark Pine restoration,” stated a 2022 implementation report. “Mechanical thinning has been completed in 1.6 hectares, which is a small area relative to the amount of Whitebark Pine habitat.”
No reason was given for failing to take precautions. Since the fire, Guilbeault has made no public mention of the management reports.
Even though federal officials, including his department, knew the raging pine beetle was a serious hazard, Guilbeault blamed climate change: “As we are seeing in Canada and all around the world, we are seeing more and more aggressive forest fires,” he said on a media call on Monday.
Landon Shepherd, Incident Commander for Parks Canada, also attributed the intensity of the blazes to climate change: “This isn’t meant to be a discussion about climate change, but anyone who’s involved in fire management can tell you that things have become more difficult, especially in the last five years, to manage impacts.”
The 2022 warnings were not the first time concerns about a lack of fire prevention in national parks have been raised.
In 2018, CBC reported concerns from experts. Emile Begin and Ken Hodges, foresters for 40 years who had been studying Jasper National Park, found multiple issues with the forest that make it susceptible to a fire.
“You have fire suppression that has occurred for many years — therefore, you get a lot of dead fuel that would have been consumed by a natural process,” Hodges said. “The mountain pine beetle adds even more fuel to the situation.”
“You’ve got a major catastrophe on your hands if you get a match thrown into that.”
When pressed about the concerns, Alan Fehr, a superintendent for Jasper National Park, said: “We’re quite comfortable with where we are with our own emergency planning and evacuation planning.”
Hodges disagreed: “The potential that’s out there is actually scary. Hopefully, we’re wrong.”
Despite the repeated warnings of potential devastation due to forest management practices, Ottawa continues to point to climate change as the cause of the fires.
The Alberta government has been preparing, and increased its firefighting budget by more than 50% to $155.4 million this year. Alberta’s firefighting budget is now the highest it has ever been (despite misinformation about cuts.)
However, without proper fire prevention on national park land, blazes can become out of control quickly — as the warnings indicated.
Smokey Bear would be horrified. Clearly, Ottawa needs to spend less time interfering in provincial jurisdiction and more time focusing on things that actually are federal jurisdiction, like fire prevention in national parks.
Their inability to see the forest through the trees and take legitimate action to protect our national parks from the fury of an out-of-control wildfire demonstrates a degree of ineptitude that is, quite frankly, shocking.
Ottawa needs to stay in its lane and focus on its own jurisdiction, and they need to stop blaming climate change for their own ineptitude.
Originally posted in the Western Standard
By Josh Andus
Like the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP has a problem with recruitment. Writer Andrus argues that this makes it all the more urgent for Alberta to organize its own force
A recent report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s independent Management Advisory Board had findings that are nothing short of alarming:
“Federal policing has now arrived at a critical juncture of its sustainability, which present risks for the national security and safety of Canada, its people, and its interests,” says the report.
After over a year of diligent study, the Board has been tirelessly firing off flares, signalling to all who will listen: the very foundation of our national public safety apparatus may be at risk of faltering. This is doubly problematic because, as you well know, the RCMP is also responsible for boots-on-the-ground policing in large parts of the country, including many rural and remote areas — including in Alberta.
Rural crime has been a longstanding issue in Alberta, and social disorder continues to make headlines nightly. Alberta Minister of Public Safety, Mike Ellis, took to social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) to express his opinion:
“The independent report finds the RCMP has struggled in recent years to recruit and retain regular members, a problem that’s particularly acute in federal policing. This is not about the hard-working men and women on the frontline: they are doing everything they can. The reality is the RCMP do not have enough officers to police communities in Canada effectively.”
Ellis has been ahead of this story for months now.
In March, Ellis stated that: “… on average, Alberta has an RCMP officer vacancy rate of 20 per cent. This means that Alberta is only being served by 1,522 of the 1,911 RCMP officers that the federal government has authorized for Alberta.”
“Make no mistake, we are paying for these services that we aren’t receiving. Alberta’s taxpayers are paying tens of millions of dollars for nearly 400 vacant RCMP officer positions — for boots that are not on the ground.”
The consequences of this capacity crisis are far-reaching. Not only does it jeopardize the safety of Albertans, but it also undermines the credibility of Canada’s federal police force on the international stage.
With limited resources and personnel, the RCMP’s ability to address pressing national and global security concerns is severely compromised. The Management Advisory Board, created in 2019 by the federal government to provide external advice to the RCMP commissioner, set up a task force in the fall of 2022 to study the federal policing program.
Overall, the report says budget and personnel shortfalls have left the RCMP “operationally limited,” restricting the number of cases it can take on annually.
Here are some more highlights from the report:
- “Canada and its people have already begun to see the repercussions of the federal policing program being stretched thin.”
- “Federal policing’s overall eroding capacity may have implications for the credibility of Canada’s federal police force and its investigations on the international stage.”
- “Ultimately, this may influence Canada’s overall approach and standing in international politics, including its ability to advance global priorities.”
Clearly, we cannot afford to wait any longer. Municipalities can ease the burden on our national security services by establishing municipal policing.
Several cities in Alberta already have their own police authorities, and the provincial government is providing funding for others interested in exploring this option. Grande Prairie is already in the process of establishing their own municipal police service.
No word on how many other municipalities have taken the government up on their offer.
Unfortunately, President of Alberta Municipalities Tyler Gandam (also Mayor of Wetaskiwin) is featured prominently on the National Police Federation’s “Keep Alberta RCMP” website. Interestingly, the Keep Alberta RCMP website doesn’t mention the fact that the advisory board even exists.
It doesn’t mention the report. The notion that our federal policing infrastructure teeters on the brink of instability while Gandam appears to be asleep at the wheel, is deeply disconcerting.
The safety and security of Albertans must remain our top priority.
We cannot afford to wait any longer. The time has come for the province to take swift and decisive measures to bolster policing capabilities in Alberta.
It’s time for Alberta to seriously consider the establishment of an Alberta Provincial Police Service.
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