alt Hacker News>Alberta has a wealth fund.
Since the 70s, yes, and it's minuscule because the oil companies socialize the risks and privatize the profits, less some token royalties. Norway's was established in the 90s and is multiple orders of magnitude larger, because they don't allow big oil to fuck them over.
>The amount Alberta has sent in equalization payments would have allowed us to have a far larger wealth fund than Norway has.
You are being fed a narrative.
Equalization payments are taken from federal tax revenues. Every Canadian pays taxes according to the same graduated tax rate schedule, whether Albertan or not.
Alberta does not "pay into" equalization payments. Provinces do not "send money to other provinces". That's simply not how the program works.
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> Alberta does not "pay into" equalization payments. Provinces do not "send money to other provinces". That's simply not how the program works.
You're being pedantic.
Income from Alberta workers gets taxed and sent to other provinces or citizens living in other provinces via various federal programs. If we were a separate country, all that money would stay in Alberta.
Splitting hairs over the precise "how" doesn't change the fact it's money siphoned out of Alberta to other provinces.
Equally, you are being fed a narrative. Yes, yes, every Canadian pays into federal taxes that are then dispersed amongst provinces to give a relatively "equal" standard of living, hence the term equilization payments. But why does Alberta consistently send far more money than it receives? Just what is it that allows Albertans to pay so much more in taxes? And of course that doesn't even get into how the equalization formula is created and applied, what sorts of things are factored into a province's "fiscal capacity" and what things get factored out, and whether those parts of the formula could be slanted to benefit certain provinces more than others. Of course at this point you'd probably deflect and say that the current equalization formula was put in place by the Harper government because you think that I must support the conservatives and this is some sort of gotcha.
The bottom line is that since the big oil and gas discoveries of the 60s Alberta has sent roughly 300 billion more to the federal government than it has received in return. This is of course part of being a province in a country, instead of a country itself like Norway is. And of course there has been mismanagement of the Heritage Fund, so Alberta is not blameless here. But the oft repeated talking point that Alberta doesn't actually really contribute disproportionately to the country is completely false. Why doesn't Alberta have a wealth fund on par with Norway? Because that money has instead been used to help fund hospitals, roads, schools and more across the rest of the country. I think that's a pretty good investment and I'm not upset about that, but I am upset when people don't even see that and choose instead to recycle a bunch of trite talking points that are basically lying by omission.