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There’s one big difference between the $11 billion Quebec will get in equalization payments from Ottawa this financial year and the similar amount our government is borrowing here in Alberta – eventually, we’ll have to pay ours back.

Yes, that thorny issue of the difference in federal transfer amounts handed out among the provinces is back following the cancellation of the Energy East pipeline project, along with the accompanying hope that Alberta crude could make it to New Brunswick and maybe take the place of some of that imported Saudi oil in those East Coast refineries.

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Someone new to Canada would be forgiven for imagining such a national project, involving the shipment of our most important resource, would be an economic boon to everyone across the country, therefore a no-brainer for unanimous backing. Ah, but that’s never the way Confederation works.

So when everyone’s favourite loud-mouthed cartoon character of a Quebec politician, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, got all giddy and giggly in declaring victory after TransCanada Corp. announced it was shelving the project, his typical brazen blathering stirred up those barely suppressed emotions here in Wild Rose land about the amount certain provinces get in equalization payments, especially considering how Alberta hasn’t received a single dime since 1963.