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In just 11 years, Albertans have paid out almost $240 billion to the rest of Canada.

That number is more than one-and-a-half times as much as B.C. and Ontario combined, whose taxpayers pitched in $54.6 billion and $97.9 billion respectively, the other two largest net contributors to the federal balance sheet.

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The money is sent to Ottawa as part of net federal fiscal transfers — basically the residents of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal programs and transfers — they are net positive contributors to the federal finances. And in Alberta’s case it has been doing that for a lot of years.

Other provinces are net negative contributors — they get more back in federal programs and transfers than they give in taxes. In Quebec’s case its net negative contributor was minus $171.3 billion from 2007-2018.

The numbers from Statistics Canada show that Alberta’s $240 billion comes to about $5,000 a year — for 11 years — for Alberta’s taxpayers.