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Alberta has made short-sighted choices. It has done so for decades. Hoping for long-term financial stability based on historically high oil prices was doomed to fail.

In recent years, we have heard, again and again, spurious claims that Quebec lives off Albertans’ taxes. Premier Jason Kenney is the latest in a long line of western politicians claiming that Alberta pays for Quebecers’ social programs. It is notoriously simple for an Albertan politician to score cheap political points in his own backyard by alleging that Alberta pays the bill for Quebec’s public daycare.

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That is simply not true. Ask any expert worth their salt: Quebec does not receive equalization payments because it spends more, nor because Alberta spends less, on social programs. Equalization payments are calculated based on a province’s capacity to generate tax revenues. Alberta could generate huge tax revenues and chose not to do so. It is Alberta’s perfectly legitimate, albeit ill-advised, own choice. Therefore, Albertans should not complain about paying for any of Quebec’s social programs. It simply is not true.