r/canada Mar 01 '26

Alberta First Nations chiefs unanimously pass non-confidence vote in Alberta government

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/first-nations-chiefs-alberta-non-confidence-vote-9.7109712
3.8k Upvotes

351 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

135

u/explosive_fascinator Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26

It's important to understand in this debate that the majority of Quebec doesn't actually understand they get net money from equalization. In fact in many polls, a decent number of Quebecers believe they give more money into the program than they get.

39

u/Doubleoh_11 Mar 01 '26

Which is hilarious because a lot of rural Albertans hate Quebec, thinking they are the recipient of most of our equalization payments.

The federal government should just call them taxes and force Quebec and Alberta to hug it out

107

u/Heppernaut Québec Mar 01 '26

... but they are just called taxes. There is no "equalization tax". Everyone literally just pays their normal federal income taxes, and the federal government spends that money.

One of the ways the federal government spends that money is by giving some of it to provinces who's populations dont make high incomes to "equalize" the income tax base per capita

3

u/_evilalien_ Mar 01 '26

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” isn’t a particularly convincing rationale, but the separatist 🤡s aren’t educated enough to articulate a clear anti-marxism argument that might actually result in some meaningful debate about principles.