Fiscal Imbalance

What do you think about the 'fiscal imbalance' between the federal government and the provinces. Does Ontario get the shaft, or is it just sour grapes?

It's six of one, a half dozen of the other. The way things are set up, sometimes it's fair and sometimes it isn't.

Ontario isn't the only province that sometimes gets screwed though, neither is Alberta. Saskatchewan was (I think still is) paying the feds $1.07 for every $1.00 they make from oil. Quebec has been screwed at various times. So has Manitoba. A new system would be great, but nobody wants to negotiate in good faith, so they aren't likely to get one.

This is one country though, not ten or thirteen. The idea that Ontario and/or Alberta can just take their bat and ball and leave because they want to feed their own greed is ridiculous. Both provinces have taken federal money in the past.

This is taking charity to a whole new level. Draining away our wealth by way of transfer payments to support underperforming provinces while our transit system crumbles, while our roads and infrastructure falls to pieces. Our per capita spending on education and health are almost the lowest in the country. And we're supposed to be the rich ones? This is not sustainable - this will affect the long-term competitiveness of Ontario.

So push your MP's and the opposition party leaders to dump the corporate tax cut and use it in Ontario. Jack's the only one willing to do that.

You're bitching about transfer payments, but Martin and Harper both want to toss $4.2 billion to their corporate buddies when we already have one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the developed world.

We need tax cuts, both personal taxes and corporate tax! Look at the massive surpluses the feds are ringing up - we are way overtaxed. Cutting taxes will stimulate the economy which will lead to higher tax revenues - a virtuous circle. The liberals and ndp think tax dollars are some pot of money to use on their pet projects - daycare, gun registries..... Cut transfer payments to the Maritimes, Quebec, Manitoba - let suport themselves for once.

We don't need or deserve tax cuts until the debt is a thing of the past. This isn't some neo-con wet dream where the debts are never paid.

We do need social programs. The measure of the success of a nation is how well it looks after its people, not how much corporate robber barons make.

Most people don't want or need the state to take care of them. They just want the government to get out the way and give them the opportunity to take care of themselves. I do believe in a social safety net... what I don't believe in endless social programs to address every aspect of people's lives. Cut taxes - put money in people's hands and let them make their own decisions on how to spend it.

Polls show that most Canadians do indeed want more and better social programs, MMMike. That's been a consistent trend in Canada since the 1950s.

If that's the attitude, then why have a country at all? The transfer payments help ensure that we all have the same standard of living. Ontario and Alberta are richer provinces, but they are part of the Canadian family, therefore they have to pitch in to help the less wealthy provinces.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the Maritimes, Quebec and Manitoba play bigger roles in the past and most likely supported places like Alberta and Ontario? It all evens out over time. When the oil runs out or all the big business moves west, I'm sure Alberta and Ontario will be there asking the rich provinces (whoever they are) for money.

Maybe I overstated my case. I do believe in federalism, I do believe in some transfer payments. But the "same standard of living"? I think the richer provinces can and should enjoy a higher standard of living - they've earned it. Now it seems to be backwards - Ontario is no longer able to maintain it's most basic infrastructure. The engine of the national economy - Toronto - has to sell their hydropoles to balance the budget. Education spending is near the lowest in the country. This is not sustainable, not fair, and will hurt our competitiveness over the long term.

What's wrong with expecting people in the Maritimes to relocate elsewhere to get a good job? Thousands of people do it. I did it. Do you know how many people out there work for a few months of the year and then go on 'pogey'? And I need to underwrite this? NO. Enough already.

Pogey...Employment Insurance...is an insurance plan. We pay in, and we take out. It is not supported by transfer payments or general tax revenues.



They do so at a higher rate than any other region of Canada. If they all showed up in Toronto and Calgary looking for jobs at the same time, you'd be yelling about them stressing your provincial systems.


The standard of living really only refers to having comparable social programs in this instance...it doesn't mean they get everything that Ontario or Alberta have, MMMike.

Rather, Ontario is finding that maintaining infrastructure is very expensive since Harris privatized everything.

Harris did that when he had a high school drop-out as his education minister.

...have they?

...and just how have they earned it?

...by being on top of a huge oil reserve?

...or by living in a province that's willing to tax the piss out of the populace to entice corporations to set up shop by offering juicy tax incentives? Sure it may stimulate economy by breaking the backs of the lower to middle income earners...

...and incidentally, how much harder do you think people in Ontario work compared to people in Manitoba, or Saskatchewan, for instance?

It doesn't matter how or why local economies are hot or not. They just are. If the local economy in buttf@ck nowhere is such that there are no jobs, no opportunity - MOVE! Don't sit on your ass expecting a handout.

No, it's all quite clear actually.

Ontario Chamber of Commerce (--)
Fairness In Confederation
Fiscal Imbalance: Driving Ontario to ‘Have-Not’ Status.
David MacKinnon, August, 2005
PDF --

NOTE: The Ontario Chamber of Commerce report starts on page 5. If you look to the bottom center of the Abode Reader you'll see "1 of 39" (current/total number of pages) and to the right a single arrow. Click on that arrow to get to "5 of 39" to start reading the rather shocking report. Chambers of Commerce are non-profit private organizations. They are not government organizations.

Canadian Financial Quarterly, CIBC World Markets
Killing the Golden Goose
Warren Lovely, April 15, 2005
PDF --

Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP - --)
Vertical and Horizontal Fiscal Imbalances: An Ontario Perspective
Thomas J. Courchene
Jarislowsky-Deutsch Professor of Economic and Financial Policy Queen’s University
and Senior Scholar Institute for Research on Public Policy
Montreal

Background Notes for a Presentation to the
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
HOUSE OF COMMONS May 4, 2005

PDF --

For starters.

"Screwed" how, when and where is your documentation? Alberta pays out over a billion dollars less/year in taxes (the only ones that matter, never to be seen again) than the City of Toronto does. Ontario (south) is not "sometimes" screwed it is always screwed.

And of course "no one" other than Ontario (south) wants to "negotiate" anything. Manitoba is right up there with the Atlantic Canadas in blood-sucking leech status. What would it government want to negotiate other than the usual, "gimme gimme and gimme MORE!"

Due to Alberta having no population to speak of; barely more than the (meaningless due to the population of Manitoba showing up every day) resident population of the City of Toronto, which has the population of Saskatchewan + Nova Scotia + PEI + Newfoundland & Labrabor (but only the budget of Saskatchewan), and due to Alberta having no real economy to speak of, it's still a deserted prairie/agricultural province, isn't exposed to the kind of competition the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor is globally, its government is handed energy royalties for doing nothing, it has no provincial debt, no provincial sales tax, is contemplating dumping its provincial income tax, had over $10.5 billion in "conservative surplus" in 2004 (tends to be called overtaxation by real conservatives; and on barely 3 million people it's a lot of overtaxation), while the confederate feds keep only $3 billion in reserve; Alberta is the crybaby of "these federation" (easy marketing with such a puny market of "us and them") and they're the greedy pricks who don't even have their own law enforcement.

"Ontario," (south, it has to pay for the north as well and the north starts at hwy 401, 0 km north of the 401 other than around the obvious) due to the Bob Rae NDP Lunatics, over $10 billion in overspending, they broke a world record for any sub-national government running up a $63.4 billion accumulated budget deficit in just 5 years, from 1990-95 and Rae and Lunatics bitched about the $2 billion "fiscal gap" (the amount of revenues collected by the confederate feds, per capita, as opposed to what the government of Ontario gets back in pittances of its own taxes, per capita, as opposed to every other province).

But when Mike Harris took over in 1995, with over $20 billion more at the sub-national level, Ontario's deficit as opposed to the confederate deficit that Ontario doesn't owe one cent of, it is owed hundreds of billions of dollars by "these federation"; the confederates immediately increased the plundering from Ontario by $20 billion a year, an average of $22 billion every year from fiscal years 1995-2004, "back to the usual" after "the federation" laid off on Ontario plundering in the late 1980's (Peterson/Peterson-Rae minority) then early 1990's (Rae majority) before going to back to the usual tax plundering.

$22 billion/year on average from 1995-96 through 2004-05 = $176 billion; not in total taxes paid out, that's almost $90 billion but the usual: "revenues per capita" paid out to the confederates, never to be seen again, per capita -- which would otherwise be paying for healthcare, education and such in Ontario but it's at the bottom of the heap in the Canadas and around education, the Canadas means nothing, south Ontario doesn't compete with the rest of the Canadas, it's got the lowest funding per capita and as a percentage of GDP than all 50 states in the U.S. let alone the rest of the Canadas -- which means nothing here.

And another $23 billion is leaving "Ontario" this fiscal year as with last year and last year $11 billion of that came right out of the City of Toronto. Another $1.1 billion is expected to be stolen from the City of Toronto this year, but due to the "new deals" the decimal point in extra plundering ($100 million; maybe, if the confederates keep running absurd surpluses off south Ontario, an extra billion dollars, $1,000 million, leaves the City of Toronto this fiscal year, $100 million of its own taxes "might" come back and that is not acceptable; it'll amount to $12.1 billion stolen from the City of Toronto alone but we're supposed to be on our knees thanking the confederates and "Ontario" feds for the decimal point coming back; maybe).

Alberta will be lucky if it pays $11 billion out, is sitting around with billions of dollars in surplus, has about double the per capita revenues Ontario does due to no population to speak of and winning the lottery, nothing it did or does, its government just gets handed royalties from foreign oil companies.

Around major "transfers" it's not difficult to find out what's what:

Total Equalization Entitlements (1993-94 to 2005-06)
$ Millions (1,000 million = 1 billion)
1 Figures reflect increases resulting from the new framework on Equalization announced by the Prime Minister following the October 2004 First Ministers' Meeting.
2 These figures incorporate the protection provided to provinces against declines in Equalization as announced. These figures do not include the additional $150 million in Equalization announced in Budget 2004.
Source: Not Long For This World Finance "Canada": --

They're sorted the way they are from left to right for a reason. But B.C.'s finance minister used "equalization" welfare handouts to pay its budget deficit off and stated that B.C. would collect that welfare handout that is paid for entirely by Ontario (south) taxpayers, well into the next decade, not only until its budget deficit was (now is) paid off but until it had a specific $1.x billion SURPLUS and it's no different with Saskatchewan. About the only thing "per person" means anything around these ridiculous handouts is to Quebec, because it has a real population (markets to sell to) and economy and pays out the highest per capita taxes in "the federation" and also opted out of the -- and -- (pays for 100% of its healthcare, post-secondary schools, social services, and other things the CST subsidizes; which is not included around the "equalization" welfare "transfer" which the Atlantic Canadas and Manitoba take the cake on):

Total Equalization Entitlements (1993-94 to 2005-06)
$ Per Person
MAJOR (nowhere near all) "Federal" Transfers
2004-05 and 2005-06 sorted from the highest, per person, to the lowest for 2005-06

$ Per person / the percentage it is of total government revenues
* NL Up one position over NS from 2004-05
**SK up the highest of every jurisdiction in percentage of provincial revenues

Source: "Finance Canada" -- (scroll down for all jurisdictions)

And "Ontario" (the City of Toronto directly funds the "Ontario" government out of municipal taxes; it's time for them to pack up and head to North Bay) is last in nothing that matters. The U.S. Windsor-Quebec City Corridor free trade agreement aligned Canada, period, the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor, north-south.

We're no longer sitting behind a wall of import tariffs and have no economic interest at all in the rest of the Canadas anymore than with Africa, South America and everywhere else we import supply from; incuding the rest of the Ontarios and Quebecs.

Political "restructuring" (massive; or civil war) is inevitable, let alone kicking the rest out of our economic union other than the Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island. We'll pay about 80% less for supply and Alberta is the most obvious target for that, along with U.S. support, while putting an end to the insanity of throwing hundreds of billions of dollars away to accomplish worse than nothing.

So why doesn't it act like it? Months ago I saw you make a post, probably to bluealberta, who was claiming the usual unbelievable propaganda out of Alberta, that it's under-represented, is paying the bills for "all of Canada" (it has the economy of Iowa at 80 cents U.S., in 30th spot and has nowhere near the economy of the City of Toronto alone) and I found it very unusual for someone from the prairies to be "sticking up" for Ontario, with its under-representation, which is this:

Population Growth from Census 1991 Census 2001
Sorted from most to least (rounds to nearest thousand by source,
500+ people rounds up to the next thousand, 499 or less doesn't)[/b]
Source: Statistics Canada --
[Last 100 years of dicentennial census data per jurisdiction]

How many people it takes to get 1 federal seat in the House of Commons
2001, sorted by the most population per seat to the least
* Ontario Undercount correction from Statistics Canada: http://www.gov.on.ca/FIN/english/dem...cenpe0403e.htm

Population stats: Statistic Canada via -- (July 1) but it doesn't round to the nearest thousand

...I don't have to guess around anything but you stated that Ontario was under-represented, without proving it such as above, and that "it" sends boatloads of money to Ottawa; and it's very unusual for anyone outside "Ontario" to do that, then someone from Ontario just posted a little thanks to you and you had to affirm your "westernness" and we're sick of all of it.

And you're not "west" you're about dead center of the Canadas (west to east) and there is only one "Western Canada": it's called British Columbia. The rest is the prairies and most of the Ontarios and Quebecs might as well be dumped into that, and then there's the Atlantic Canadas, with 4 provincial governments and not even the population (or anywhere near the expenses/problems of the City of Toronto alone) all whining and moaning on top of the territories.

There is no "Ontario" and "Quebec" is an illusion:

Windsor-Québec City Corridor, 2001

Ontario Section
10,706,513 93% of Ontario's population

Québec Section
6,327,354 87% of Québec's population

Total Population
17,033,867 57% of Canada's population

Source: Statistics Canada 2001 Census

There is no "Western Canada" as any singularity, over half of the population of Manitoba lives in Winnipeg and a city-suburb of the "GTA thing", Mississauga, attached to Toronto's west end, has the same population as Winnipeg. There is no Manitoba, there is no Saskatchewan, there is the Calgary-Edmonton "corridor" in Alberta (which includes Calgary, hwy 2 and Edmonton) with over half of the population of that "province" and the Vancouver economic region, the Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island then the rest of B.C.

And the Atlantic Canadas are no singularity, then there's this "central Canada" thing, but it's the "Golden" (quite rusty due to tax plundering) Horeshoe, Toronto economic region, Montreal economic region and Quebec thinks it has problems with whatever this "Ontario" thing is supposed to be, other than a ridiculous mess, which is the same as the "GTA thing": dysfunctional messes due to insults to the words "structures" and "systems" and nothing is more isolated in the Canadas than the City of Toronto. The "GTA thing" hates it, south Ontario hates it and who cares about the rest of the Ontarios?

OUR OWN farmers, fine. But not in the same economic union with us and they'll get four to five times the subsidies they get now, but not to export raw/semi-processed garbage, worthless primary crap, it's worth less than 2% of Ontario's GDP, for export.

Ontario has never taken one cent out of "these federation" and it is not the slighest bit "ridiculous" to reform the total mess called "Canada" so that South Ontario is keeping at least as much of its own taxes as everything else gets, per person, which has never been the case.

And I'm not a socialist and greed has nothing to do with anything. The hundreds of billions of dollars plundered from Ontario might as well have been burned to spin a turbine so that we didn't/don't have to import power we should be generating ourselves with nuclear plants, from the U.S.

This mess called "Canada" has been a spectaculor failure and throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into the wind is stupidity and it has harmed other economies in the Canadas, to say nothing of what it's done to south Ontario.

Alberta has no such claims, nor does anything else in the Canadas. With handouts of Ontario's taxes, every province (and the confederate feds) are deficit free while Ontario runs a $5+ billion deficit, mainly due to SARS (over $2 billion in guesstimated damages in 2003, and an INSULT from "these federation" in a pittance of our own taxes back, a one-time payment of $330 million and zero for the blackout of 2003, which introduced a new term in the Toronto markets; "pre-blackout levels" and it took over a year for the markets to get back to "pre-blackout levels" but if it had happened in Quebec or anywhere else, as it has, hell, we had to throw out over $400 in food ourselves but no one was counting any of it, around supermarkets or anything else; a BREWERY had to sponsor a concert in Toronto to try to salvage what was left of the tourism season over not just SARS but th UN-WHO slapping a world-wide travel advisory on the only global city in the Canadas, Toronto, which got the U.S. Center for Disease Control here in no time because they actually know what Toronto means, they don't have inferiority complexes and thousands of business trips and dozens of conventions were cancelled, which affected NAFTA and the CDC threw cream pies in the faces of the WHO then gave a news conference covered by CNN over their usual lack of understanding as what the BRAIN DAMAGE of "this country" is around Toronto and south Ontario).

We most certainly can "pick up our marbles" and not only can but must. "Leaving" is not an option. South Ontario IS Canada along with the other end of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor.

Quebec is "going" nowhere let alone Alberta. The U.S. owns Alberta and they're free to try to test that if they're deluded otherwise. But it doesn't want Alberta ... we can't even maintain an economic union with the rest of this mess due to most of it having economies based on the export of raw/semi-processed voliatile commodites.

No single central bank/monetary policy can work for the knowlege-based economies of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor - Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island, which is quite small compared to the markets/economies of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor but it cannot be sent into another economic union.

There will be the Republics of South Ontario, whatever the Quebec section of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor wants to call itself, the Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island, three federal governments, everything else gets a sub-national government (much improved from the hoplessness of elected dictatorships, total insults of "systems", one union constitution, only totally essential union services (former "federal" institutions/agencies/departments, reformed), two economic charters/central banks, with the other central bank likely in Calgary, and it will have a very difficult time setting monetary policy with a bunch of rather small economies based on the export of raw/semi-processed volatile commodites, which will force change (on top of no handouts for anything other than not creating massive security theats on the U.S. border) and will stop the insanity, one of the largest money transfers on the planet out of Ontario to accomplish worse than nothing; as always.

Necessity is the mother of all invention and south Ontario has a lot of catching up to do, has no "extra" taxes, it needs massive tax cuts to compete with the economic regions of the U.S. it competes with and to diversify that further, while southwest Quebec and southwest B.C. do the same and the rest are forced to wake up and figure out which century this is and how far behind they are and why and what to do about it -- fast.

The E.U. doesn't throw money around like this ridiculous "federation" has and there is ample proof, common sense, hand a government billions of dollars for failing, penalize economic success to the point of bankruptcy to do it, and the government doesn't have to think about anything but politicking and to puny markets that are simple to market to (which is not the case in south Ontario), the "blame game" of excuses and it's worse than communism.

Communism isn't stupid enough to REWARD failure for no apparent reason, unconditionally; which is all "this country" has ever done and it has used worthless provincial/territorial governments against a worthless confederate mess to plunder south Ontario.

Go ahead and show me (whomever it's a public post nothing personal) when or even HOW "Ontario" got money out of WHAT in this "federation?" I know when and how but Canada was not a "federation" at the time and the Brits were in control and the money has been long, long paid back to Lower Canada.

It is mathematically impossible for anything to have paid into "Ontario" or "Quebec's" economies, not one cent. Only south Ontario can pay into Quebec and it's the only thing that ever has.

Alberta was a welfare case until 1964. Saskatchewan has never paid one cent into "these federation." Taxes mean nothing when they're all returned along with hundreds of millions of dollars a year on top of that.

Alberta pays out nothing. "Ontario" (south) pays out more than it gets to keep for itself, which is not "helping out"; it's like having more than enough food for your own family, offering a hand, then having everyone else taking more than what you have left to feed your own family with.

And it has "helped" nothing. It's nothing new and if it worked then the "equalization" welfare handout transfer would have worked, one of the largest money transfers in the world out of Ontario (south) but equalization handouts have not helped anything; more and more and more is demanded every year. If it worked, then it would lead to economic growth and less and less would be required every year as the "poor" provinces got on their feet. But that has not happened and the Atlantic Canadas have done extensive research on it and it has HARMED their economies, and it's all wrapped up in this:

Ontario Chamber of Commerce (--)
Fairness In Confederation
Fiscal Imbalance: Driving Ontario to ‘Have-Not’ Status.
David MacKinnon, August, 2005
PDF --

Check the sources, check everything, it's just the latest insanity report.

You are mistaken. Alberta was a welfare case until 1964 and Ontario supported it. Ontario is the one and only jurisdiction that has always paid more into "these federation" than it has taken out of it (as in, it owes zero on the confederate debt as well but pays almost all of the expenses on it) and is the one and only jurisdiction that has never received the "equalization" welfare handout transfer. And of course not; someone has to pay for it all.

Quebec plays the second-largest role behind Ontario and without Quebec's taxes Ontario would have been bankrupt long ago trying to pay the bills of this mess and both have the largest land mass and populations and are the only jurisdictions with their own provincial law enforcement.

Um, no. We've been at this for 100 years and nothing has "evened out" or ever will without massive restructuring. And we have 5 years to "balance out" the massive tax plundering of south Ontario before it becomes a "have-not" province and it is what sets the benchmark of what a "have-not" province is, so how much of Ontario's taxes other provinces get. But that has been completely destroyed, there is no connection at all to how much south Ontario's economy is growing and what is paid in handouts to the "have-nots."

The 2004 "equalization" renewal carved the rate that equalization welfare handouts will increase by per year in stone for the next 10 years and Ontario's economy is not expected to grow at the rate fixed; which is documented in the PDF above along with many other delusions "Canadians" have.

The transfer payments are costing us $23 billion a year. And there is no "we" around Manitoba and "we" in Toronto don't expect anyone in the Canadas to understand anything; other than in the rest of the Torontos, "Golden" (rusty due to tax raping and plundering) Horseshoe and the rest of south Ontario is more than enough to deal with.

You don't have ecnomies that are the size of Toronto's in any province other than all of Quebec, you don't compete on the same level as we do, you don't know much of anything in the rest of the Canadas (or Ontarios) because of all anyone ever talks about on this forum: "natural resources":

Gross domestic product at basic prices primary industries
$ constant 1997 (millions) 2004
Source: -- "Canada is rich due to natural resources, right?" You call 5.9 per cent of the total economic output of the Canadas, gross, before taxes but not excluding subsidies, 5.9 cents on every Canadian dollar "rich?"

Our economy is not base on natural resources. Primary, the above, is worth less than 2% of Ontario's GDP.

And it's not due to vehicle manufacturing/parts either. Ontario (south) out-produced Michigan in vehicles (not just cars) last year and Michigan has the highest vehicle output in the U.S.

We manufacture quite a lot more than just vehicles and parts but all manufacturing in the Ontarios is only worth 20% of its GDP.



Source: --

It's another world and has next to nothing to do with "Ontario" given that 9% (and shrinking) of the population of the Ontarios lives outside south Ontario and is involved in primary, producing supply, which is worth less than 2% of "Ontario's" GDP and they cost us a lo more than that.

Corporations are what employ the greedy working slobs and their unions that the likes of the NDP stand up for -- because they're in a time warp with the rest of the Canadas, they have never even managed to get an industrial revolution going in a province and around this economy, who cares about $4.5 billion in corporate tax cuts?

Our corporate taxes are higher than the worthy economies in the U.S. we have to compete with and there are not many worthy economies in the U.S. compared to south Ontario, but they all have lower corporate taxes and personal taxes and that is all that matters around here. What the taxes happen to be in B.C. or anywhere else in the Canadas are irrelevant in south Ontario.

And what is the point in paying for the likes of Manitoba? We don't need your grain. Over 75% of it is exported raw and it's not exactly a cash crop. Why should we pay to subidize that stupidity or any other stupidity? You get what you reward and all this ridiculous "federation" does is penalize economic success to reward failure -- with zero accountability, no measurement system to see if (no need by just looking at population and GDP of other "provinces" that might as well be colonies) it's accomplishing anything but maintainining stupidity.

And no measurement system to check its impact on the Paymasters in south Ontario; by the confederates.

We don't have 50 states like the U.S. does and it transfers next to nothing in federal taxes to other states, which is why it (and Ireland and Spain and plenty of other places with economies that "should not be" as high as they are given that they didn't/don't get the handouts that anything in the Canadas does out of south Ontario) and that's why.

Subsidizing farmers, primary period, in the U.S. to fend off the westen Canadas with their 19th century "economies" and no markets to speak of, exporting raw/semi-processed natural resources as a result (which is not how to make money in the 1900's let alone today), because they actually have markets outside what would be two states in the U.S., south Ontario, southwest Quebec, the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor, tiny strips of land compared to the rest of the Ontarios and Quebecs let alone the rest of the Canadas, with 60% of the population/markets and the rest scattered around millions of square km, without the population of Toronto, the usual as in the population of Winnipeg is the municipal area and Toronto's municipal area is the fourth largest in North America behind only L.A., NYC and Chicago and it's about to take Chicago out.

Outside the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor, there is nothing to add up in the rest of the Ontarios and Quebecs so the entire province of B.C. is next and it doesn't even have the popluation of Toronto.

<CENSUS METROPOLITAN AREAS - 2001 - --

CENSUS METROPOLITAN AREAS - 2001

1. What's a Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)?

The 2001 Census defines 27 census metropolitan area (CMAs) and 19 census agglomerations (CAs) with census tracts. This working paper includes three maps for each of these CMAs and CAs. The first map shows the boundary of the CMA/CA and the boundaries of the census subdivision (CSD) components of the CMA/CA for the 1996 Census. The second map shows the transition from 1996 to 2001 (with boundary changes highlighted), and the third map shows the CMA/CA (and component CSDs) as it is defined for the 2001 Census. Accompanying tables list the component census subdivisions and the criteria which they meet to be included in the CMA or CA. The paper describes various factors that can result in changes to the boundaries of CMAs and CAs. For the 2001 Census, municipal restructuring is the factor that has had the greatest impact on the boundaries of some CMAs and CAs.

The paper also briefly describes and compares the delineation criteria for metropolitan areas in the United States with those for census metropolitan areas in Canada. An indication is given of the impact on the Canadian CMA program if the American metropolitan area criteria were used.

Source: --
The paper: PDF --
CMA listings/maps: -- (PDFs)

Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and Census Agglomeration (CA)

Part A – Plain Language Definition

Area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a census metropolitan area, the urban core must have a population of at least 100,000. To form a census agglomeration, the urban core must have a population of at least 10,000.

Part B - Detailed Definition
...
Source: --

2. How the tables are laid out.

Name of Province - 2001 provincial population (total) follows. Next line CMA (title, the names of the CMA(s) under that) 2001 (populations for the CMA under that), 1996 (populations of the CMA under that), population growth or decline rate (a minus sign [-] denotes decline) between the 1996 Census and 2001 Census and those numbers came with the data, I have not checked them -- and Rank.

RANK: 1 is the most populous CMA, Rank 27 is the lowest/last because only 27 CMAs were defined by the 2001 Census.

Ontario - 11,410,046
2,748,740 people in "Ontario" live outside the CMAs above, 75.91% of the population lives in the CMAs and scratch Greater Sudbury, the asterisk beside it, which I didn't put there; not as a CMA in the "Outer Canadas" but if it keeps losing over 10,000 people per census it won't be a CMA for much longer either.

Subtract 277,587 people (Sudbury, Thunder Bay) from the 8,661,306 people just in the CMA's of south Ontario. They are supply (Thunder Bay has the largest number of grain elevators in the Canadas; to ship out the worthless grain from the prairies that's heading across the Atlantic, with about 75% of the grain grown in the prairies being exported raw, which is not profitable and we have to pay to subsidize it and subsidizing stupidity is why even Spain has a larger economy than "the Canadas" does), they have nothing to do with the economies of south Ontario, we import supply from all over the world and they might as well be in Africa or Australia or some backwater state or South America or all of the other places we import supply from; which has to do with the asterisks that I did not put there.

Québec - 7,237,479
2,682,116 people live outside the CMAs above, 62.94% of the total population lives in the CMAs.

* «Main Street» : Windsor-Québec City Corridor a.k.a. "Inner Canada" (ask David Kilgour)
14 of Canada's 27 CMA's (13, scratch Sudbury -- not as a CMA but as a CMA in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor given that it's nowhere near it and its economy has nothing to do with ours).

Total population of Ontario and Québec CMAs: 13,216,669

British Columbia - 3,907,738
1,461,501 people live outside the CMAs, 62.60% of the total population in them.

Total population of Ontario and Québec (Windsor-Quebec City Corridor) and British Columbia (Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island) CMAs: 15,662,906

Then comes the rest of the Outer Canadas/Outer World:

Alberta - 2,974,807
1,085,567 people live outside the CMAs, 63.51% of the total population in them.

Manitoba - 1,119,583
448,309 people live outside the CMA, 59.96% of the total population inside it.

Saskatchewan - 978,933
560,206 people live outside the CMAs, 42.77% of the total population in them.

Nova Scotia - 908,007
548,824 people outside the CMA, 39.56% of the population in it.

Newfoundland and Labrador - 512,930
340,012 people live outside the CMA, 33.71% of the total population in it.

New Brunswick - 729,498
606,820 people live outside the CMA, 16.82 of the total populaton in it.

Prince Edward Island - 135,294
No CMA

Sources:

CMA populations (2001, 1996, %Change): Bridging the Innovation Gap: Count Cities In, Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) - PDF -- (via Census of Canada, 2001 Census Analysis Series)

Source of the above: Statistics Canada - -- (select a jurisdiction, sort by clicking on what you want to sort by and note the "Show land area, population density and population rank for this table" link, sort ascending or descending by population density (national/provincial/territorial rank is by total population not density) then note what other options come up.

Or start here: -- (View nationally - all CMAs and CAs, View by Province or Territory, the link above, View showing Census Subdivisions (CDs), View Showing Urban Core, Urban Fringe and Rural Fringe).

Or start here with explanations: -- and view whatever you like. The link that leads to the link above is in the list of bullets: Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), Census Agglomerations (CAs)

Or you could start here: -- to find out what changes took place between the 1996 and 2001 Census. The link to the above is at the bullet "Access": <Population> (link) counts for all levels of geography (excluding census tracts and dissemination areas) available on STC web site for public access, as well as in Geosuite and Geosearch." and lots more.

Or you could click on "Analysis Series" from the sidebar of any of the links above and turn up loads of data (to be turned into information or to get information with interactive tables) or head to that home page at: --

Total Populations: See sources above. If you start at the link below the original source (Windsor-Quebec City Corridor research, previously, the link under the FCM document) then select a jurisdiction the total (2001 Census as described at the third link above "Please note that the most appropriate 2001 population figures for Canada, provinces and territories are the current postcensal population estimates. See the explanatory note." with links in that) populations of the province/territory are listed at the top of each jurisdiction's table.

Total population in CMAs, also known as "cities," for the rest (outside "Ontario", "Québec" and "British Columbia"): 3,634,020

Toronto*: 4,682,897
Montréal*: 3,426,350

All of the rest of the CMAs in the Canadas don't add up to Toronto alone (and the "entire" provinces of the rest don't amount to Toronto's economic output, including the rest of Ontario and all of Québec; separately, then you drop by almost half of Québec's economic output to B.C., Alberta is below B.C. then the rest make up the other 12.46% the total GDP of the Canadas; liabilities, they get all of their federal taxes back and billions of dollars in handouts on top of that; are worth less than zero and B.C. and Alberta, not that there is such a thing, but if there were, would have 24.37% of the GDP of the Canadas while Quebec alone has 21.07%, Ontario and Quebec, the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor, 63.17%, Ontario, Quebec and B.C., 75.55%) and barely amount to Montréal, let alone both (2001) at: 8,109,247 people in the Toronto and Montréal markets alone, which is over the population/markets of all of Québec today and everything else in the Canadas but the rest of the Ontarios; with all of 7% of the population of the Ontarios outside the Windsor-Québec City Corridor region in 2001 and it'll be less when the 2006 Census numbers come out and the 13% of the Québec section's population is dropping very fast (other than around the Aboriginal peoples) in "the north" (everything north and east of Québec City).

No province other than the usual, the other end of the Windsor-Québec City Corridor, had 4,682,897 people; just the Toronto CMAs population and it's not "boasting," no one is in control of it, private investors, mostly American, decide in what and where they will invest in the Canadas, not governments and people decide where they will live, it's a constitutional right. When human resources meet good business plans and investors, things are built and new jobs are created and new jobs are "people with money to spend", new markets to sell our goods and services to without exporting.

The confederate feds simply plunder the Ontarios (south) to pay for bitching, whining spoiled brats in the rest of the Canadas to buy their votes and there is no fix for it other than for Ontario to become a republic along with Québec. Then we dump our norths (draw lines on maps using economic geographers to form a new economic union), sign a union constitution and economic charter hanging Québec's, pretty much Montréal's share of the federal debt/bankruptcy over its head given that Ontario is owed by "these federation" with interest and if we let everything off with that then it comes out of our share of the federal debt; and Ontario is also the one and only jurisdiction that has always paid more into this ludicrous insanity ("federation") and gee whiz, I wonder why there are problems with "central Canada," the Windsor-Québec City Corridor, the economic regions that cause the transportation/communications corridors to exist and pay for every cent of them and always have along with just about everything else's bills -- we can't even maintain an economic union with the rest of the Canadas, other than probably the Vancouver economic region, Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island.

And we don't want or need socialists with no money or clues, like the NDP, running anything. Perhaps if Manitoba ever gets a real industrial revolution going, the poor working man being exploited by corporate fatcasts (not in knowledge-based economies, it doesn't work or you lose your most important resource: well-educated human resources not natural resources) and then it gets into a high tech revolution, then is manufacturing what is needed for an information era and it all has to tie together, it will find the NDP to be oblivious dinosaurs without a clue what a knowledge-based economy needs.

They proved it quite well when they actually won a majority govenment in Toronto, not Ontario. Stick up for the "working man" and the labor unions make outrageous demands, they had "their man" in power but the working man is hired by corporations that can and did lock them out.

Then the NDP discovered who/what PAYS for the working man, who/what creates all the jobs for the working man and had to deal with corporations and then the unions became irate, the NDP had turned their backs on them and was conspiring with the enemy, so they all went on strike.

By the time they were done, everyone was locked out and on strike; but maybe they make sense in Manitoba, Saskatchwan has even fewer people, neither are knowledge-based economies and we had no "federal" party with a clue.

They have lots of clues but can't sell it to the Canadas because the Canadas is still stuck in the agricultural era for the most part; it's why it costs so much money and is such a lame country.

Japan has next to no natural resources and its topography, weather, eathquakes and such are much more difficult than anything in the Canadas has to deal with. But even Spain makes more money than the Canadas and maybe your healthcare and other social systems work but ours don't; none of them. Due to tax plundering, you all get more of our money per person than we get to keep for ourselves.

And there is no reconciling it. When you (the rest of the Canadas) have a clue, you do. And get it with your own money. We have real business to look after and real issues to deal with.

So Toronto should get everything and the rest of us should starve? How should I put this? Lick me.

Southern Ontario has worked very hard to draw and keep manufacturing and corporate headquarters there, which has a detrmental effect on the other provinces. The biggest advantage that Ontario has in drawing and keeping those headquarters isn't anything that they've done themselves though, it is simply proximity to the north-east corner of the United States.

You've been sucking manufacturing out of the west since the end of WWII, so bitching that we don't make much out here is kind of silly. Christ, both Ford and GM used to make cars in Regina. It was the Ontario government that lobbied for those plants not to be returned to production after WWII. The same thing happened with farm equipment. Excuse me if it rings a little hollow when you complain that the rest of the country doesn't have the manufaturing base.

You talk about building nuclear plants to supply your power. Why won't you push for an east-west grid? We can supply some (not all) of your energy needs and Manitoba will need less of your money. The source is hydro-electric which is clean and reliable and you don't have to try to figure out what to do with radioactive waste after.

If you want to argue that agriculture isn't knowledge-based, get on a plane and I'll meet you in Regina this afternoon. I'll take you out to a few farms and let you explain your little theory to some farmers. After that I'll see to it that you get a quick tour of Saskatchewan's medical facilities. You'll need it.

The technology used is incredible, the techniques used are advanced. A degree in agriculture used to be a way for the son to kill time until he could take over the farm, now it's pretty much a neccessity. You also need to be a mechanic, an electrician, a not-so-small business person, a computer wiz, and a vetrinarian. Oh, and you have to be willing to put your house and business on the line every year. Agriculture is a knowledge-based industry, Ranger. If you knew anything about agriculture, you would know that.

I do argue that we should have representation by population, Ranger. I will continue to do so. That isn't because I think Ontario is hard done by, it's because we live in a democracy. I also believe we should have proportional representation so that getting 40% of the popular vote doesn't give a party 55% or 60% of the seats. I know there's no support for that in business circles because the corporate honchos would have to buy even more politicians but, like I said, we live in a democracy.

The truth about the fiscal imbalance is that the Ontario government, pandering to that corridor you're so fond of talking about, has encouraged and built the fiscal imbalance.

The truth about the democratic deficit is that it exists in two parts, largely because the business leaders like it that way because they have fewer bribes to pay.

If S-Ranger wrote a book, I would buy it.

So would I. I wouldn't buy into everything in it though. Reducing a nation and its regions to nothing more than some numbers on a piece of paper while ignoring the other, less tangible, aspects of that nation and its regions is no way to run a country...or even a dog kennel.

If you want to get personal please use the pm button to get the email address of my secretary to arrange a date. Then when you call her my "secretary" (it must be addressed "Dear Ranger's Secretary:") in the pm, which I'll forward to her email account to tell her that you want to arrange a date (lunch date, I don't date strange boys for dinner on the first date) so I can "lick you," which could mean any number of things, none having to do with a tongue, my wife will be more annoyed at you calling her my secretary than anything else.

What are you talking about, easy jab at Toronto so you thought you'd take it (and many more at south Ontario and "Ontario")? It's a jurisdiction of Ontario (or south Ontario but there is no such jurisdiction, just a label; the purpose of population, truly economic<->socio-economic analyses, is to expose flawed political structures than run in all directions and impose systems that do not work because the structures make no sense so they cannot work; not just in Toronto or the communities that make the Toronto CMA up, along with the others in south Ontario, but outside them all, political "lines" that make up "structures" that divide because they make no sense; and because politicians take advantage of that and the ignorance around the people in the lines, to divide, not to unite), which is between the Ontario and confederate feds and Toronto City Hall and many other city/town halls and other organizations within the Toronto CMA, which you know exactly what about other than nothing?

I published quite a bit of information, not from me, and you think you know what about anything to be responding to me without (at the bare minimum) reading every document at every link first, doing research, figuring out which way is up given that this is the Ontario forum?

Ignorance is the cause of every problem in the world and if you wish to propogate it, I suggest that you find someone else to attempt it around. You do not make statements for me (or anyone else) to respond to in this forum. You back your statements up with facts or will be buried alive with so much reality, you'll wonder which planet you come from. I certainly do, but I wonder the same of all Outer Canadians. The clueless in other countries are not my concern; as yet.

I have no interest in educating the brain dead (which means what I say it means, not what you might happen to think it means, whomever "you" may be). Publications on the Internet can be read by anyone from anyhere, can turn up in any search by any fluke. This is not a "conversation." I state the facts, others learn from them and are free to check on all of the sources and their sources and if they have a problem with a specific source then it is up to them to communicate with that source to get their heads screwed on sraight (or to find an error and get it corrected, which we do quite often) or to do what else other than learn? Ask questions, it's a good way to learn.

Just because you have no clue what the relation is between economics<->socio-economics and insults to the words structures and systems (political<->socio-political marketing) does not give you the right to claim that there is no relationship that matters and to publish the usual socio-political marketing tripe "these federation" are based upon, which is entirely the point of exposing it. And no one does a better job of it than "Canadians" do, parroting the political marketing their parents and others "within their lines" taught to them, leaving politicians completely unaccountable, political "systems" completely unaccountable; harmful let alone unaccountable.

Call a wheat farmer a sledger of boulders into gravel. It's hard work and it pays so little that massive subsidies are required to keep the person doing work that is not smart, does not benefit him or her, does not benefit the community, does not give anyone better jobs, but because they do it, politicians argue that they must keep doing it (as opposed to actually using their brains and telling these people that they do not have to do it, that if they used their brains they could all have better jobs, working hard bur working smart; which would require re-training) and they shower them with praise for their hard but stupid work (for this country) and "stand up for them" by keeping them in their stupid jobs, which they know are stupid, but as long as they can get handouts for them to barely survive on; "they have done their job."

And the people applaud the politicians for getting the money to allow them to barely survive doing stupid work that is not necessary and that some people in a Third World country with no money still shouldn't be doing, but with that, at least we could claim "We're Canadians." And we could generate much more money to help less fortunate countries, but as is, we can barely support ourselves.

The exact opposite of the smokescreen above is the truth. Every single Canadian, mostly their politicians, average Canadians are clueless, along with the confederate feds, have been telling everyone in Ontario:

"Our lives are worth far more than the lives of anyone in Ontario..." and with our money, which is not money its work and taxes extorted with no choice, and at least that is fairly uniform. That Ontario happens to pay out more taxes in total is irrelevant. Of course it pays out more, it has 40% of the gross domestic product (GDP; total assets minus liabilities, before taxes, also called economic output) of the Canadas. California has the highest economic output in the U.S.:

[b]Real Gross State [Domestic] Product (millions of chained 2000 dollars), 2004
* "-Last State" and "-Last Region" column shows how much the difference from one state (or region) to the next. E.g. California generated $595,653 million ($595.7 billion) more than New York state did in 2004 and/or New York generated $595,653 million ($595.7 billion) less than California did. The southeast region generated $381,545 million ($381.5 billion) more than the mideast region, etc.

Note that the first "1" in California's 2004 gross state product (GSP, gross domestic product, GDP, same thing) is a trillion dollars. Add six zeroes to all numbers above to get millions of dollars. Vermont's GSP (real GDP/GSP using constant chained dollars simply eliminates inflation as opposed to current dollars at current prices/expenses) can be expressed as $20.6 billion or $20,608,000,000 or $20,608 million. The numbers to the left of the first comma are billions of dollars (1,000 million), 1,000 billion is a trillion; dollars or anything else. California is the only state with over a trillion dollars in gross (before taxes) economic output also called gross state/domestic product or GSP/GDP.

51 may look odd but it's due to 50 states + Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.)

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/gsp/ Interactive Tables)

California generates $595,653 million ($595.7 billion) more than New York in 2nd place, so of course it pays out more in federal taxes, but it doesn't have 40% of the economic output of the U.S. even though it generates ($1,120,766 million, $1.1 trillion, is the total real GDP of the Canadas for 2004, --) $317,971 million ($318.0 billion) more than all of the Canadas, no currency exchange, USD to CAD, California still only has 13.42% of the economic output of the U.S; before taxes, it's what gross means.

But what federal receipts happens to be from each jurisdiction, even though 40% puts a rather large burden on "Ontario", which is this:

Windsor-Quebec City Corridor, 2001

Ontario Section
10,706,513 93% of Ontario's population

Quebec Section
6,327,354 87% of Quebec's population

Total Population
17,033,867 57% of Canada's population

Source: Statistics Canada 2001 Census

...the issue is that provincial revenues are known and all "payments" made out per province by the confederates is known and the population of each province is known and:

$1,861 - Each Ontarian contributed $1,861 more in 2004-05 to Ottawa than he or she received in federal program spending, accounting for his/her share of federal debt interest costs.

What do you know about that? The politician who wrote it doesn't know much about it, quite obviously, given that "program spending" has nothing to do with what he meant to say, "share of interest received back" in Ontario due to payments of interest on the federal debt and why would a province receive a share of interest paid on the federal debt? Would you like an economics course in a post now? Federal bonds make money and no province has any control over sales of federal bonds, but the federal government has no commodity money. It has no way of generating a cent on its own so it has nothing to back the federal debt up with other than the commodity money (as opposed to credit money; commodity money is a good or service that has value; credit money is what central banks create, like bank notes, also called currency, endless IOUs, there is nothing backing any of it up globally other than other credit money; the gold standard was dropped long ago by Nixon, there is nothing backing up "U.S. Federal Reserve Notes" which used to be redeemable in gold or silver and used to state so on them but look all you want now, they are redeemable by nothing and treasuries all over the world stuff their vaults full of, usually U.S. federal treasury bonds/bills/coupons, etc., in a big meaningless shell game, which is why the price of gold is so high because the game is falling apart, but that's another book or ten) from businesses with security money, assuming the securities agencies are doing their jobs, it's as good as commodity money, which no federal government has.

So by paying the interest on federal debts, with commodity money, federal (treasury) bonds are alleged to be worth something, even though they're simply traded for other worthless pieces of paper from the U.S. to "back them up" with nothing because there is no direct connection between commodity/security money and credit money other than the shell games central banks play (the U.S. central bank is called the U.S. Federal Reserve, with its own banks, they are all private corporations based on the Bank of England, just as the Bank of Canada is a private corporation, it does not answer to any elected anything anymore than "The Fed" does; they can all print as much credit money as they want to, but they pretend that it's connected to commodity money by floating it on the same exchanges as commodity money is on, but that's another book or ten) and the simple end-result is that federal bonds would pay zero interest without extorting commodity money from their sub-national governments. The interest they paid out would be the interest on the federal debt, so they would pay no interest and no one would buy federal bonds.

We also have treasuries and bonds in sub-national governments, which also incur interest and we have to sell our bonds, pay out interest on them and pay the interest on our own debts, which the feds don't have to do because we pay their interest. So they return the share of interest sub-national governments pay (are supposed to) so that our own bonds are worth something other than the interest paid on our debts. Or in Alberta's case, with $10.58 billion in surplus (March 31, 2003; -- though it was no different on March 31, 2001, the end of fiscal 2000-01 when such things are reported) it has no interest to pay to cover its provincial bonds, but still pays a share of the federal debt so it still gets a share of that interest back for no apparent reason.

Only Ontario, Alberta and B.C. generate more revenues than they get back from the federal government. Every other jurisdiction gets 100% of all federal receipts back and billions of dollars more per year on top of that; i.e. they are paying nothing on the federal debt so should be getting nothing back on interest paid. And what Alberta and B.C. pay out that is not received back in "program spending" (all minus share of interest on the federal debt), they pay out the same, combined, as the City of Toronto alone does; minus "program spending." The only revenues (called that due to "taxes" not being the name of all sources of revenues for any government; EI premiums are not called taxes but they are, driver's and many other licences, permits, registrations, user fees [fare, whatever], tickets, "Crown" corporations, etc.) paid out that matter are the ones never to be seen again in any way, shape or form in whatever jurisdictions over whatever period(s) of time.

But all provinces and territories do received shares of interest on the federal debt back and even with economists low-balling Ontario's contribution to interest on the federal debt to nothing more than the percentage of total federal receipts (revenues received by the feds from Ontario), it still gets ripped off in share of interest. Program spending is totally separate issue; below.

$3,919 - This is the amount the federal government spends per Ontarian not including federal interest payments on the national debt. This is the lowest of any region in the country. That compares to $4,375 spent per westerner, $4,974 per Quebecker, and $8,209 per Atlantic Canadian.

• Ottawa spends $1,055 more on each Quebecker than per Ontarian
• Ottawa spends $ 456 more on each Western Canadian than per Ontarian
• Ottawa spends $4,290 more on each Atlantic Canadian than per Ontarian

Share of last year's surplus, initially $9 billion was left out of revenues from Ontario, then $4.8 billion was blown on side-deals with everything but Ontario. "Share of" as a percentage of GDP again, not the fact that every jurisdiction but Ontario, Alberta and B.C. gets 100% of all federal receipts back and tens of billions of dollars more on top of that and that Alberta and B.C. pay out what the City of Toronto alone does, in the only revenues that matter, never to be seen again.

$858 million - If EI income support benefits were distributed by provincial shares of the unemployed, Ontario would have received $858 million more in EI benefits in 2003-04. We received the lowest amount of benefit per unemployed person of any province in 2003-04 ($5,060 per unemployed person). In contrast, PEI received $14,485 per unemployed person.

$330 million - Despite getting 54% of the country's immigrants, Ontario receives just 34% of federal funding for immigrants settlement. If Ontario settlement agencies got the same per capita amount as the Quebec government receives then Ontario agencies would receive $330 million more (including Quebec's expenses for its own immigration services) per year based on recent immigration levels.

$1.3 Billion - The amount Bob Rae says we need to invest in post-secondary education to raise ourselves to the national average. We are currently 10th of 10. But far worse than that, are 51st of 51 in the U.S. (including D.C.). We do not compete with the Canadas.

$100 billion - The shortfall in infrastructure investment in Ontario compared to what every other province receives, as demonstrated by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure last summer.

For starters.

Taxes are too high. The taxes that matter in Ontario are the taxes in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and the like, not B.C. or anything else in the Canadas but even putting that aside, which we cannot put aside, compete or die (and we need 3.5% economic growth per year for the next ten years just to keep up with the guaranteed increases to the equalization welfare handout transfer or will go further into debt, will have to cut even more spending when we're already last, PER PERSON, which is the only way to even things out in this mess or between ourselves and states and other countries we compete with; businesses compete not cities or states but legislation and taxes, the availability of human capial, Ontario is last in education period, not just post-secondary), it's not revenues generated by Ontario's economy that end up as federal receipts; it's getting the least back around everything FOR those revenues that creates the "fiscal imbalance" which is one of the biggest scams in the world, one of the largest money transfers in the world takes place from Ontario to the confederate feds (running massive surpluses while we increase our debt, raise provincial and municipal taxes and cut services, are last in healthcare in any measure, it's not "money" it's lives) to the other provinces, and the bond markets have long ago taken notice of what the confederates do to Ontario and the tens of billions handed to other governments, paying off their deficits, increasing their surpluses, things that bond markets notice in this mess and all other provincial bonds (treasury bonds, they cover provincial debts or in Alberta's case, surpluses) trade higher/through Ontario bonds.

What Ontario doesn't get back compared to the other provinces for those taxes, per capita (per person, same thing), which is how all "transfers" are paid out and it's not just "transfers," is where the $23 billion (last "fiscal loonie scam year") "gap" comes from. $11 billion of that was run on the City of Toronto by the Ontario feds last year (nothing new), almost half, and the City of Toronto alone doesn't have half the population nor does it generate half the GDP of the Ontarios and it's not just confederate taxes, they not only keep all of the provincial taxes generated in the City of Toronto but plunder its residential municipal taxes to pay their bills, which makes it an Ontario issue -- and this is which forum?

If you think you can make definitive statements about Ontario (or anything else) with me around, then you might want to do your homework and know exactly what you're talking about.

But aside from that, which of these did you have problems understanding?

Ontario Chamber of Commerce (--)
Fairness In Confederation
Fiscal Imbalance: Driving Ontario to ‘Have-Not’ Status.
David MacKinnon, August, 2005
PDF --

NOTE: The Ontario Chamber of Commerce report starts on page 5. If you look to the bottom center of the Abode Reader you'll see "1 of 39" (current/total number of pages) and to the right a single arrow. Click on that arrow to get to "5 of 39" to start reading the rather shocking report. Chambers of Commerce are non-profit private organizations. They are not government organizations.

Canadian Financial Quarterly, CIBC World Markets
Killing the Golden Goose
Warren Lovely, April 15, 2005
PDF --

Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP - --)
Vertical and Horizontal Fiscal Imbalances: An Ontario Perspective
Thomas J. Courchene
Jarislowsky-Deutsch Professor of Economic and Financial Policy Queen’s University
and Senior Scholar Institute for Research on Public Policy
Montreal

Background Notes for a Presentation to the
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
HOUSE OF COMMONS May 4, 2005

PDF --

Which of their sources do you disagree with, specifically, where and why? Where is any of the math wrong, based on which fradulent financial statement from which Dept./"Ministry" of Finance? Just for starters.

How about these:

“How to Fix Equalization to Encourage Growth.” (--) Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site.

“Help that Hurts.” (--) Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site.

You agree with this statement, not the smokescreen above:

"Every Canadian needs and deserves more revenues per person, for healthcare, eduction, social services, affordable housing and everything else than anyone in Ontario deserves (just the same revenues per person) to keep out of ITS OWN revenues per person because..."

Because why? You, all of you, all of the Canadas and the confederate feds are telling every Ontarian that the lives of everyone outside Ontario are worth FAR MORE than the lives of anyone who lives in Ontario, and have been demonstrating so for decades, telling everyone in Ontario, including newcomers who get ripped off, that they're all worth less than you are -- without accomplishing anything other than stealing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our lives; healthcare, 10th of 10, education, 10th of 10 but we don't compete with the Canadas, 51st of 51 (including D.C.) in the U.S., outrageous taxes and despite our generosity, everyone in the Canadas hates us. Well, every former Ontario premier (etc.) calls it "distain."

And we're just supposed to keep it up? It has accomplished worse than nothing and you're about to prove it. Well, state the usual, proof is another story.

The "blame game" and so sorry sorry for working hard, so what's the solution? A general strike, shut down all the manufacturing and corporate head offices, particularly the bank head offices, TSX, and what, they'll all move out west? Then you can pay all the taxes and as with Ontario, barely clear your throats about it. No complaining, you make more so you get less PER PERSON than we do; because we'll be doing all of the bitching and moaning about nothing, when we would be bitching and moaning about crappy jobs to ourselves and would get it across to our local and provincial "representatives" for blowing the tens of billions of dollars "the west" was paying them, allegedly to "help us" and we'd get all the jobs back without any money by using our own heads and demanding (such as is possible around less than worthless elected parliamentary dictatorships, with only very fake representation; which we also have to fix here and everywhere else to stop this insanity, which does not go on anywhere else in the world to the extent it does here) that governments get out of our way.

The world has a "detrimental effect" on south Ontario and anything else that can't compete due to being plundered of tens of billions of dollars a year to accomplish worse than nothing (or doesn't even try to compete as a result of being a recipeint), but nothing has received the hundreds of billions of dollars Ontario has paid out to the rest of this mess for this "detrimental effect"; which is exactly why it has to stop.

You're all quite good at bitching and moaning with theories and myths but private investors decide where and in what they will invest; globally. Human resources decide where they will live and why; globally. The U.S. (some regions) works very hard to create and keep manufacturing and head offices tend to set up around their operations and never use the entire buildings, they lease most of the space out so have to be able to do that as well.

Whatever head office in the Toronto area, mostly in the City of Toronto, one in every six jobs in the Canadas is within the Toronto city limits, which is quite sick, just 5 more cities of Toronto and you've got every single job in the Canadas; but nowhere near the commodity/security money generated elsewhere, they don't use anywhere near (or at all) "their space." ScotiaBank has an office tower in downtown Toronto with the rest of them, in the financial district, "Bay Street." It's the Wall Street of the Canadas, a prestigous business address to have and they don't use anywhere close to all of the space. Why didn't they line up investors to build the thing in Halifax? Because nothing would have invested in it, it would have been ridiculous to stick a building like that in Halifax. What would lease out all the space?

BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises) Place sits beside Union Station in downtown Toronto. BCE doesn't use anything in the building. CSIS has its head office in it, plenty of things do. But all those things do is use lots of infrastructure and generate no taxes (other than the building permits; they last a lot longer than the permits are worth) that Toronto City Hall gets to keep. They're not residential so the "Ontario" government steals all of the taxes, and all that's been going up in the City of Toronto for the last 15 years are condos, anything that generates residential property taxes, to pay for the infrastructure they use and doesn't generate thousands more commuters from outside the city who pay no reseidential property taxes in the City of Toronto, but clog up and wear down all infrastructure, create garbage that has to be collected with what's left of the residential property taxes the "Ontario" government doesn't steal, which has to be collected and trucked to Michigan because NIMBY ... you know what MIMBY means of course, particularly with this "idea" of handing Manitoba's hydroelectric power to south Ontario (southcentral, "Golden" Horseshoe, there isn't much elsewhere), grids all the way from Manitoba when MIMBY won't allow it in the "GTA thing" -- Not In My Backyard. Not power plants, not high tension power lines and the lovely scenery they create with their towers and it doesn't have to be anywhere near actual backywards (or farms or good luck with Algonquin Park) but no matter what the issue is, it's every other "community" outside the City of Toronto first; let alone the rest of the Canadas with myths that there is some singularity called "Ontario" or "south Ontario" which is not "southern" because that implies that it's part of something else, just a geographical region, when it's quite a lot more than that around politics.

Big power stations are out, no one wants that, NIMBY, with plenty of political organizations outside the City of Toronto that seem to think they live on Mars. And Mars is close enough and we're going to have to move them further north to live with their delusions if they don't smarten up and get on planet Earth. Garbage incineration is fine with me, put it on the north lawn of the "park of the Queens" parked on prime real estate in downtown Toronto for no apparent reason and run the chimney right into the place. Or better yet, since they'd make us pay for it out of what's left of residential municipal taxes, just start dumping garbage all over the place, starting with the "park of the Queens" then Toronto international airport, Union Station, fill it up, no one gets in or out, then dump it in walls at every entry point to the City of Toronto on every highway and biway and then into the subway tunnels and we'll take the 30,000 jobs. And won't collect any garbage created by the "Ontario" government until they wake up and stop this political snootiness while sitting on our land; and the confederate feds are also parked in south Ontario and the "rolling brownouts" that most dickheads in the Ontarios don't notice, but factories certainly do, should be blackouts out the entire "Ontario" and "federal" government first. Cut their power and communications completely, and garbage collection and financial transactions and everything else and see if we can't get them to wake up the NIMBY morons; and plenty more.

We have done nothing but pour billions of dollars into the rest of this "federation" and for what? Nothing we decided to do, no choice and now we're 5 years away from being a "have not" province, no one is going to tell me that their lives and the lives of their elderly and kids and every other age group are more important than the lives of Ontarians, it's not "money" it's not just "revenues per capita" or some dollar amount, Ontarians are ripped off around everything and it causes dead people, ruined lives and we don't work so that your politicians can can not work, not think or that any of you can sit around spitting at us -- with our money in your pockets.

If Ontario has a "detrimenal effect on the other provinces" then the very least it can do is stop handing out tens of billions of dollars a year, sort out what "Ontario" is and is not, let Quebec do the same and get out of your faces, economically and poilitically; and you out of ours, more importantly. The entire world has a "detrimental effect" on those who have no clue how or care to compete.

And you're about to contradict yourself anyway.

Fine, so south Ontario has done nothing, it's simply proximity to the U.S. so it must be all their fault. Or maybe it's all Japan's fault. But the U.S. Southeast is the richest region:

not the Great Lakes region or New England region/northeast.

The "bitching" is over your head, obviously. You're the ones doing all the bitching, always have been and manufacturing was "sucked" out of the west by south Ontario, simply because of its proximity to the U.S. Northeast, but name all of this big, big manufacturing and the corporate "headquarters" that had the western Canadas booming with during WORLD WAR II. The high tech era hadn't even started yet, that WHAT in whoever you mean by "you" SUCKED out of the west? Plenty of manufacturing was ramped up all over the world during WWII and when the war ended, the U.K. was in ruins, most of Europe was in ruins, Japan was in ruins but today is today and SPAIN's GDP is higher than "Canada's" and there is nothing silly at all about looking at this massive country with all of the resources it has; but no markets to speak of other than in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor - Lower Mainland-south Vancouver Island.

Anyone is free to move and to work anywhere they want to in the Canadas, immigrants choose where they'll live and Vancouver has a strategic location around that, not Toronto, but Toronto gets the bulk of the immigrants. Despite getting 54% of the country's immigrants, Ontario receives just 34% of federal funding (pittances of revenue returns; always) for immigration settlement. If Ontario settlement agencies got the same per capita amount as the Quebec government receives then Ontario agencies would receive $330 million more per year based on recent immigration levels (or any immigration levels; "recent" as in the last 25 years, not last month).

And what has all of the spending accomplished other than a "country" that has "distain" for Ontario, one of the largest money transfers in the world, this does not go on anywhere else and states in the U.S. are closing economic gaps faster than this mess has or ever will (as is) and it's not "all" in the documents above (there are lots more) but more than enough is in them and all it has done and is doing is destroying south Ontario so that worthless boneheads of politicians can play their sick games.

So Ford and GM shut down auto plants in Regina, after World War II ... and the "Ontario" government "lobbied" for them NOT to be "returned to production?" How do you people manage to make sense our of any of this garbage? If Ford and GM had closed the plants then they were closed, so why would they be re-opened? Did Ford and GM have fits of insanity, close plants without thinking about it, then run to the "Ontario" government to ask for advice about what they should do?

They close plants all over the place all the time and what lobbying did the Saskatchewan government do "to get them re-opened" and why didn't they do the usual and bitch to the feds about poor, poor them and how many billions of dollars did Ontario taxpayers have to pay poor, poor Saskatchewan over some decision, not just one but two different corporations made? What a cooincidence. And after WWII no less.

And what was the same around what farm equipment when and why? Half of the best topsoil in the Canadas in in Ontario (ya ya, we "sucked" that out of the west too) and have lots of cash crops here but farm machinery isn't even worth 1% of the 20% of all manufacturing in the Ontarios is worth of its total GDP.

Far too many of you "Canadians" think that governments run everything when "corporate bigwigs" have stockholders to make money for (or they end up as blackballed bums) in a global economy. If they thought it made sense to open a lollipop factory in Regina, or if "y'all" could take resonsibility for yourselves for once, you could open your own lollipop factory if you could prove that you had any markets to sell to that make any economic sense to ship from there.

And if you can't get the whole lollipop production then what about the sticks? It is up to no one but you to figure out what you can do, why, how, go ahead and demand it from your own governments, it's certainly not up to ours or the federal government, it's not federal jurisdiction and Trudeau told you it's not up to him (the federal government) to sell your wheat (among other insults) because it's not.

It's up to you to use your own heads and "y'all" can hardly claim to have used them in the last 100 years while exporting live cattle to American meat processing plants and re-importing. Or did they do that, is it all their fault as usual?

No, excuse me when your lame excuses and fairy tales and myths, particularly excuses; mean nothing other than all the more reason to cut our losses, stop the handouts to force "y'all" to think, go ahead and blame your own governments, they won't be able to play any blame games with us, so will have to tell you the truth for once, that it's up to you to use your heads and then you can bitch at them to create sound plans and then they can bitch at you telling you that it's not a one-way street, that they can't just magically create new jobs out of the blue and eventually you'll figure out which planet you're on and which century it is and reality will either suck or will be a whole new world of opportunities.

And there are exchange programs to replace you with people who won't have to be told any of the above. Small businesses are the backbone of Ontario's economy, not big plants or head offices. I've heard westerners and northerners easterners bitch about everything under the Sun and in most cases they're opportunities. No this, no that, "Really? Where and what's the market?" 500 people and they're paying $2.47 for a loaf of stale bread from Vancouver that is delivered once per week, on sale. If it's true, why not open a little bakery, make fresh bread, sell it for $2/loaf regular price and make a killing. But no, sit around and bitch instead.

Oh my. A whirlwind of activities in Saskatchewan. I'll be more than happy to "explain my little theory" (it's not mine and it's not a theory) to anyone on the planet.

I'll be happy to explain it to the airline pilot heading for Saskatoon, or the real farmers producing cash crops in this region; but a simple Google on +"knowledge based" +economy is a better messenger and indicator of at least attempting to gain knowledge using the goods and services that made the information era and knowledge-based economies possible.

I do not require any tours of farms in SASKATCHEWAN. And what's wrong with your own rather ample grain farms, your location is listed as Winnipeg, not Regina so change it if you're in little Regina and you won't be such a worthless welfare bum as everyone residing in the Manitobas is, whether they want to be or not, whether they're paying taxes or not, whether they work 80 hours a day, it's irrelevant. No one/nothing in Manitoba has ever paid one cent in taxes. It gets them all back and billions of dollars a year more on top of that, sucking off the teets of Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta of late though B.C. and Alberta combined pay out the same in "federal receipts" (the only ones that matter, never to be seen again, there or here) as the City of Toronto alone does.

"Using technology" you don't create to create PRIMARY AGRICULTURAL ERA CRAP, raw/semi-processed for export due to no markets to speak of or "using technology" you don't create to spread ignorance on the Internet because you can't be bothered reading anything, or "using technology" you don't create for anything but the creation of innovation has NOTHING to do with the information era let alone having a knowledge-based economy.

South Ontario has the best farmland in the Canadas and over half of the best farmland in the Canadas is in Ontario. Why would I go to Bumf*ck, Nowhere to check out the "incredible technology" that we create and use all over the place in south Ontario for cash crops that require much more care, much more technology, than anything that can be grown way the hell up and out over the 49th parallel?

If you knew anything about real agriculture (or anything else) you'd contract out mechanics, electricians because you'd be too busy with operations to deal with production. And oh, "putting your house and business on the line" is worth nothing around cash crops. House? A rural farmhouse is worth what exactly? Putting your land up, which "farmers" in the "GTA thing" have to do, is only worth doing to pay for a harvest; or you lose your land and business.

And we're tired of this "Canada" thing when our own farmers who put food on our own tables and get nothing close to what other farmers in the rest of the Ontarios do, let alone the rest of the Canadas, and we can/have to pay them four to five times as much as they get now to get them up on par with the rest of the Canadas; but can't due to the revenue plundering to pay for stupidity, raw/semi-processed exports, not our food processing plants and those jobs and spin-offs and soutn Ontario first is definitely coming, too late, it's sat around being raped and plundered to accomplish worse than nothing since "confederation" and we're already paying most of the bills, always have, without a peep, but we have farmers in the GTA who are going bankrupt, having to put their land up, in co-ops not any "Wheat Boards" with massive subsididies on top of all of the rest, with failing co-ops due to nothing but revenue raping and plundering, not being able to pay for the technology required just to analyze their fields before sowing, take a wild guess, use the "old methods" while other farmers have every fifteen feet squared off and analyzed and fertilized properly; with technolgy we develop but that our own farmers can't afford.

And depending on what? It depends on what they do with their land. We can't have every "farm" being an orchard, vineyard, growing tobacco, because the higher the value of the production, the more money it takes for the technology to ensure that the production isn't a write-off; to financiers and around the little insurance they can get via their co-ops and sharing technology and the very last thing anyone around here needs is a tour of Saskatchewan or anything else. You all need tours of this region to see what our farmers are putting up with.

Of course you don't "think" anything about "Ontario" given that you research nothing and there is no such thing as "Ontario" other than around lines on political maps that make no sense at all. And how do you expect anyone/anything to get "representation" around insults to the words structures and systems?

The only way to demonstrate it is to break the economics<->socio-economics (demographics) of this mess down and I don't care if you or anyone else doesn't happen to like it, or doesn't want to understand it. It would be very incompetent for the operator of a dog kennel to not know or care how many dogs it has, what their state of health is due to different breeds, knowing nothing about different breeds or anything else and using worthless systems and structures that left them blind, deaf and dumb, not doing their jobs because every other dog in the Canadas automatically got more of the money the Ontario dog kennel operators generated, to improve nothing in dog kennels anywhere else and actually make them worse due to dog kennel operators outside Ontario listening to lying politicians who treat people as dogs, have no interest at all in their real health or anything else but playing games that measure nothing (but political gain) so mean nothing.

Communism would be an improvement to this "democracy."

Like I said -- you have no clue what you are talking about. Political parties, namely the "liberals and conservatives" don't want PR. But even if it were introduced, it's done in Quebec for its next election, perhaps you want to visit the Fair Vote Canada web site to learn about PR and good luck in the discussion forum, because "Canada" is about the most bizarre country on the planet claiming to be a "democracy" so what kind of PR do you recommend for this asylum and based on what? Fairy tales, getting more NDP Lunatics into the maniacal "system" instead of fixing it?

No amount of bandages are going to "fix" this mess. One little shove and it all falls apart, and we didn't create the "western bloc" of crybabies on one side, the Bloc Quebecois markets what sells, but has stated the simple reality over and over again: the "system" is broken beyond repair. The structure is broken beyond repair and that's that. We concur and it's just a question of mass marketing to south Ontario (not much of a problem from Toronto) to put the insults to the words structures and systems between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go, to get a real democracy and other systems that actually make sense and work to improve the economies of "have not" provinces instead of holding them down with bull**** forever; which we cannot afford anymore.

Is that so? Prove it. Or toddle off. You can start with this:

Equalization Entitlements – (2004-05) per person
Source: --

What corridor?

Equalization Entitlements – (2004-05, 2005-06) per person
[i]Sorted by 2005-06 per person
Source: Not Long For This World Finance "Canada": --

They remove the per person every fiscal year, but I like to keep them. If it were accomplishing anything (other than in Quebec, with real markets, a real population and a massive provincial debt with a real per capita; paying that down is in our interests and everything else gets more anyway and it's our money and we will do what we want with it; soon enough, minus paying for totally essential union services, which is another book or ten, to help, not hurt any dog kennels or anything else, after we're out of the messes we're in ourselves due to the opposite by the confederates and your own politicians) and this:

MAJOR (nowhere near all) "Federal" Transfers
2004-05 and 2005-06 sorted from the highest, per person, to the lowest for 2005-06

$ Per person / the percentage it is of total government revenues
* NL Up one position over NS from 2004-05
**SK up the highest of every jurisdiction in percentage of provincial revenues

Source: "Finance Canada" -- (scroll down for all jurisdictions)

...and tell me all about "the corridor." It's nothing, it's information that takes nothing to find. The "territorial corridor" is obviously top priority, then the Atlantic Canadas but Manitoba is "right up there" (down there) with them. And Quebec opted out of the CHT and CST (formerly the CHST, which I'm sure you know all about, have studied in-depth for years; if you even know what the letters stand for), which was simple but the confederates completely screwed it up, as usual, it's all they do, but that's another book or ten.

Uh huh. Which business leaders, NDP parrot, and what's the other "truth?" Liking to "pay less" in whatever world you live in is one issue and the "democratic deficit" is what exactly? And what does it have to do with the topic of this thread and the name of the forum?

Oh my, he's gone into a tizzy and missed the central point of the argument. THERE IS MORE TO A COUNTRY THAN NUMBERS ON A PIECE OF PAPER.

It's okay, though...I needed an example of somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. You'd be it, little buddy.

You kind of missed the point that I wasn't arguing that Ontario produces most of this country's wealth. You wrote off, because it doesn't fit your in your little accountant's book, that Ontario did a lot to put itself in that position.

Your attempt to denigrate praire farmers is laughable though. It shows an arrogance and purposeful ignorance that few can muster.

You have no real arguments besides your rows of numbers. You lack a heart and a soul. You could move to Alberta and vote for Ralphie...you'd fit right in there, little buddy.

I'm back in Winnipeg now BTW. I'll meet you at the airport and drive you around to spew your vitrolic, Canada-hating bull**** around here for a while. Hell, I'll take you to Kenora so you can piss them off too.

Hide behind your numbers all you want. I never argued the numbers. I just somebody should point out that there's more to life than numbers.

Oh yeah...about the knowledge-based economy. You might want to check out who develops the crops that this country is famous for. That's real knowledge, not your numbers and greed.

By ALL MEANS read the Chamber of Commerce's report, it's the biggest bunch of malarky you'll find anywhere. It's always hysterical to read people talking fiscal matters in a country where you can't even find out where the vast majority of money goes or is accounted for (try the auditor general's report).

Even the Chamber of Commerce says that Ontario is fine, no problem. Then comes the evil black cloud "OH, but in five years we're doomed, doooooooommed". The Chamber of Commerce may be 'non profit', but the folks who fund them sure aren't. "Look" they say, "compared to the rest of Canada we're falling behind on social infrastructure, but no, in economics we don't compare ourselves with Canada, there we use the US which has a completely different political-economic structure"

What I found so funny was that not only does it claim that other provinces are catching up to Ontario, but it also claims that the equalization program doesn't work, it doesn't 'help them to catch up'. See anything wrong with that picture?

The "study" maintains that for taxes Ontario needs to have lower than New York and it's other neighbours. Well, New Brunswick has the lowest corporate tax in North America, take a visit over there sometime to see just how much benefit it has accrued out of it. It's about as close to New York city as Toronto is.

Of course the automotive companies didn't close their plants out east, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT closed all the plants out east in world war two and moved them to Ontario. The government of Great Britain chastised the canadian government for war profiteering. Coincidentally, the minister of industry was CD Howe, an american industrialist. The 'have not' provinces get money for health and education so that Canada doesn't look like Brazil, but certainly none for investment. Certainly none like the automotive buyouts handed out in Ontario. You think it's coincidence that fisheries, farming and timber are mostly commodoties traded on the open market while financial institutions like Insurance City, er, I mean Kitchener, and Bank City, er Toronto, are all safe and cosy with next to no international competition. Even steel was protected and subsidized until recently, and of course the Auto Pact made it illegal for anybody outside Ontario to build a car and sell it in Canada.

You need look no further than Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to know this is all political and not economic. Now that other areas of the country may actually turn into competition for southern ontario, which until now has had pretty much free reign, all of a sudden all these things are issues. It's issues because it actually takes INVESTMENT to help a region pay for itself, we know that all to well, southern ontario is the perfect example of that. You protect it's industries, lock out competitors, and watch it grow. However, just like the dirty thirties, just like the fifties, when regions need some investment, regional politics rears its ugly head.

For those attuned to the 'vicious circle' of lower taxes in order to make more taxes, let me offer this phrase which explains just how nonsensical it is "six of one, half dozen of the other" The fact is, in a global economy, rich people don't buy more canadian products, they stash it away in international investments.

And for those who think that Ontario is lacking in services, I live in southern ontario now and I have services I couldn't even dream of out east. The only roads that are good out east, are the highways that New Brunswickers pay for so that Ontario can get all it's 'stuff' as cheap as possible.

The companies that are here now are here now, those corporate tax cuts aren't going to make them leave if they haven't already. Canadian federal corporate taxes are already lower than the american.

How is it fair that I pay for spending that happened in the past and taht I neder benifited from. Most of the debt was created before I was born.

However, we cant just not pay it off. But what we can do is stop financing liberal corruption and stupid pet projects!

Unless you are twenty or under that debt IS yours, however, you benefit little from it anyway. Like most countries Canadians work enough to pay for all their infrastructure needs, it is Bank of Canada policies and a conservative liberal party that creates the problems-which in turn increases investment which strengthens the dollar which wipes out other industries and creates the same cycle again.

Even the liberal party acknowledges that the deficit was paid off far sooner than expected-WE paid for that, with increased gas taxes and the GST on new items. Now, lo and behold, we've been paying down the debt but look, it's larger than it's ever been before. Gee, are you feeling hoodwinked. If we privatized EVERY service in the country we still wouldn't pay off the debt.

Interestingly enough it is the federal government which has created this problem. Increased taxes, decreased services, means that industries that create infrastructure such as universities, municipalities, and provinces, have to cut back to the point where we see all the problems. Ontario would have plenty of money if instead of arguing about fiscal imbalance it simply argued for a higher share of gas tax. Unlike the other (the Chamber doesn't state where the 23 billion comes from, it's just considered 'common knowledge') the gas tax makes sense. Ontarians drive, A LOT, and since we have no deficit then there is no reason for provinces to get that money back. Actually, if the levels of government actually functioned, we'd see that money go to municipalities, which is now responsible for most of those things that are sorely lacking.

To get back to my previous point, in case somebody thinks such injustices were things of the past let's not forget the latest buyout, namely bank mergers, to protect CIBC and the others from having gotten burned by the Enron scandal, and more importantly, the dramatic rise in insurance rates. Practically all insurance is handled in southern ontario, and they even stated that claims have gone down but they made some bad investments and were getting burned by shareholders. So lo and behold, we canadians bail them out. Then they have the nerve to threaten New Brunswick if it even considers a public insurance program with lawsuits from it's american subsidiaries, and THEN has the nerve to tell New Brunswickers that they should be lucky they are insured at all, and in fact the companies were thinking of pulling out of province altogether because it wasn't worth it. Yes, it's so hard maintaining those tiny offices. But they still can't get public insurance. Nah, southern ontario is the one we should all feel sorry for.

Unless you are twenty or under that debt IS yours, however, you benefit little from it anyway. Like most countries Canadians work enough to pay for all their infrastructure needs, it is Bank of Canada policies and a conservative liberal party that creates the problems-which in turn increases investment which strengthens the dollar which wipes out other industries and creates the same cycle again.

Even the liberal party acknowledges that the deficit was paid off far sooner than expected-WE paid for that, with increased gas taxes and the GST on new items. Now, lo and behold, we've been paying down the debt but look, it's larger than it's ever been before. Gee, are you feeling hoodwinked. If we privatized EVERY service in the country we still wouldn't pay off the debt.

Interestingly enough it is the federal government which has created this problem. Increased taxes, decreased services, means that industries that create infrastructure such as universities, municipalities, and provinces, have to cut back to the point where we see all the problems. Ontario would have plenty of money if instead of arguing about fiscal imbalance it simply argued for a higher share of gas tax. Unlike the other (the Chamber doesn't state where the 23 billion comes from, it's just considered 'common knowledge') the gas tax makes sense. Ontarians drive, A LOT, and since we have no deficit then there is no reason for provinces to get that money back. Actually, if the levels of government actually functioned, we'd see that money go to municipalities, which is now responsible for most of those things that are sorely lacking.

To get back to my previous point, in case somebody thinks such injustices were things of the past let's not forget the latest buyout, namely bank mergers, to protect CIBC and the others from having gotten burned by the Enron scandal, and more importantly, the dramatic rise in insurance rates. Practically all insurance is handled in southern ontario, and they even stated that claims have gone down but they made some bad investments and were getting burned by shareholders. So lo and behold, we canadians bail them out. Then they have the nerve to threaten New Brunswick if it even considers a public insurance program with lawsuits from it's american subsidiaries, and THEN has the nerve to tell New Brunswickers that they should be lucky they are insured at all, and in fact the companies were thinking of pulling out of province altogether because it wasn't worth it. Yes, it's so hard maintaining those tiny offices. But they still can't get public insurance. Nah, southern ontario is the one we should all feel sorry for. We're rich, but we're not rich enough-you're poor, but you're not poor enough.

I'm nineteen, and I've only been living in canada since 1995.

Rev......stop saying bad things about Alberta and uncle Ralph !

marcarc, it's interesting you mentioned CD Howe....the "minister of everything" . The industrialization of Canada during the second world war along with Canada's and Britain's military preparedness owe a great deal to CD Howe. I think he is one of the most important figures in our country's history and it's a shame so few know what he did.
The federal transfer program has proven very successful at making parts of this country dependant on the federal government. In the long run this policy is harmful to the entire country by funneling wealth out of the prosperous economies of Ontario, Alberta and BC and using it to artifically support economies and buy votes in other parts of the country. These dependant areas of the country have little incentive to change.
In addition to the 2 economic corridors of Windsor - Quebec City and greater Vancouver that S-Ranger mentioned there is another economic engine of the country and that's the Calgary - Edmonton corridor.
There are about 2 -1/2 million people there and it produces a big chunk of those federal tranfer payments.

Have you ever :
Road your bike on a street?
Attended school?
Been to a doctor?
Walked down a side walk ?
Waited at a traffic light?
Taken a bus?
Arrived at an airport?
Been to a library?
Been to a museum?

Taxes on all levels of goverment go towards services we use everyday. Its easy to overlook benefits that arise from taxation.You're deriving bebnfits of the taxes I paid while I lived in Canada. It is a necessary evil.