Quebec's Finance Minister Carlos Leitao. His province receives the most from equalization. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot.

Provinces not receiving equalization funding from the federal government vented their frustrations to Finance Minister Bill Morneau over the funding formula at the biannual finance ministers’ meeting in Ottawa Tuesday.

But while the contentious issue of whether equalization payments are distributed fairly has been rumbling in the press in the lead-up to the high profile meeting, Tuesday blew by and the three provinces raging against the machine left without the changes they wanted. The main media focus turned to trade after alarming testimony from steel manufacturers and autoparts makers.

The federal government set out the formula for the next five years in its recently passed budget bill – signalling it would leave it the same until 2024.

The program is financed by federal revenues and is designed to help poorer provinces provide services consistent with the rest of Canada. But Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador — provinces rich in natural resources that don’t receive equalization payments – have all decried the current formula as unfair to them.

“Equalization is supposed to provide a comparable level of services at a comparable level of taxation across the country. That’s no longer the case,” Newfoundland Finance Minister Tom Osborne told iPolitics Tuesday after a brief closing news conference. A number of ministers had even left before the press conference started.

“We reiterated our concerns with equalization and for the need for the federal government to make changes.”

But Newfoundland is already turning its focus elsewhere. Osborne said he’s “optimistic” the province can work out a deal on equalization with Ottawa through the renegotiation of the Atlantic Accord. That has to be done by spring 2019. He said his province could be able to “make up from there what we should be getting from equalization.”

On the way into talks Tuesday, Saskatchewan’s Donna Harpauer said equalization would be one of the main issues she wanted to raise.

And Alberta’s Joe Ceci, who had pledged to push for a new formula, said this morning that he has kept the issue alive throughout the year.

“In December [at the last meeting], I shared that the equalization program – especially the GDP floor provision – didn’t work for Alberta,” he said. “Especially at a time when all the fiscal capacity of all the provinces is narrowing.”

The total amount of equalization funding increases along with GDP, which happens even when provinces’ finances start to level out.

Ceci said it’s an “unaffordable program” for Alberta. He added that he brought the issue up again in March.

While Albertans have long-contested the formula, his comments come amid pointed domestic criticism.

Last week, Alberta United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney charged that the Trudeau government “pulled a fast one on Alberta” by fixing the equalization formula for the next five years and “jammed these changes through.”

Despite the bout of bluster in the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting, it came and went with the funding formula fight losing steam, as it often does.

B.C.’s Finance Minister Carole James said “a couple of provinces” raised it at a round table at the end of the meetings Tuesday, which largely revolved around the economy and trade.

“The federal minister said he’ll be looking at that issue. It wasn’t B.C.’s issue, but it was certainly was other provinces’ issue around the formula.”

Quebec’s Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said equalization was raised, but it was not on the agenda.

“It was not formally discussed,” he said. “The formula is a complex formula. There’s always opportunities to discuss it, but right now the program is as-is until 2024.”

Quebec gets the most in equalization payments. Ontario has been receiving payments since 2009, when it was sliding into a recession, although the payments are soon expected to end for the province.

Equalization payments totalled just under $19 billion this year.