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OK, so a standard post-election line issuing from the west is that the two-faced easterners who hate our oil and block east-bound pipelines don’t seem to mind getting equalization from us. What isn’t spelled out, but should be, is that if the pipeline ingrates succeed, their equalization will evaporate. But not because the west shuts it off — even if it could (and it can’t because equalization is a federal program).

Many pipeline-blockers are on the left and people on the left presumably do like the idea of a constitutional provision that aims to assure that all Canadians can enjoy, as Section 35 of the Constitution puts it, “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.” Even better if they’re net beneficiaries from equalization. Who wouldn’t want their province to receive equalization?

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Well, actually, if your province is getting equalization it’s because its tax base is lower than the national average tax base (albeit with both “national” and “average” defined in ways specific to whatever the latest version of the equalization formula is). But “having a lower tax base” is just another way of saying “poorer.” Some Quebec politicians understand this and say their aim is to get Quebec’s economy to a point where it no longer receives equalization. In the meantime, though, while they go about that, they don’t volunteer to give up the payments.