I am quoted in a National Post article this morning entitled Movement grows to end Maritimes’ ‘dependency syndrome’. I think it is a good article and I think this conversation needs to be on the national stage.
However, I think we will never – at least in the next 50 years – come completely off Equalization. Other than Ontario, there is no ‘have’ province that doesn’t generate massive wealth and taxes from oil, gas, potash, etc. We don’t so we use Equalization to transfer some of that wealth down here. This is not likely to change in a big way.
But, we can work towards more own-source revenue generation and reduce overall dependency on transfers. We can build a stronger economy that is creating jobs and re-populating our communities. We can balance our books. These are all doable.
It just takes effort and commitment.
I think ‘movement’ may be overblowing it a bit. Interesting article in the National Post, to combine this with your blog post above-virtually every comment to the article was “we need to lower corporate taxes” in order to increase private sector investment. It seems they should have quoted you a bit more extensively-but then the NP readers may not like to hear that.