Juno News - Federal government has a 'duty' to listen to Alberta equalization referendum

00:00:00.000 Welcome back to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:10.660 We've spoken a fair bit about the upcoming equalization referendum

00:00:15.080 that Albertans will be able to participate in in October.

00:00:18.560 I spoke about this with Premier Jason Kenney a few weeks back.

00:00:22.360 And one of the big questions is if Albertans decide to vote in favor of this

00:00:27.700 to basically re-evaluate Alberta's relationship with the rest of Canada

00:00:32.020 as it pertains to equalization,

00:00:34.280 does the federal government even have to pay attention to it?

00:00:37.840 There was a great op-ed in the National Post looking at this very question

00:00:42.000 and it said the feds will have a duty to listen if Albertans vote against equalization.

00:00:47.900 This was written by Dr. Bill Buick, the Executive Director of Fairness Alberta,

00:00:52.540 who joins me now.

00:00:53.780 Bill, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:00:55.780 Yeah, my pleasure.

00:00:58.900 So what is the question? Let's start there.

00:01:01.160 What is it that Albertans are actually going to be voting on in October?

00:01:05.740 The question will be asking if Albertans want to remove the section from the Constitution

00:01:12.200 that affirms a principle of making equalization payments.

00:01:18.320 And this is a federal program, not a provincial one.

00:01:22.420 So we get now to the enforceability of it.

00:01:24.800 If Albertans do vote overwhelmingly or even narrowly for this,

00:01:29.340 what does that compel the government to do, if anything, at the federal level?

00:01:33.800 Well, there's some dispute about that.

00:01:35.400 But in the 1998 Supreme Court reference case regarding Quebec secession,

00:01:40.640 they, of course, went further into what secession would entail.

00:01:45.400 But a few times in that judgment, they just sort of affirmed a general principle

00:01:50.080 that if there's a province that's so upset about something in the Constitution,

00:01:55.100 that it's causing enough political consternation in a province that they have a referendum

00:01:59.540 to change the Constitution, that the rest of the country needs to pay attention to that.

00:02:05.480 And the federal government and the other provinces have a duty to engage in discussions,

00:02:11.180 engage in constitutional discussions, it says at one point.

00:02:14.560 And it's just sort of common sense that if you have, you know,

00:02:19.520 any of your partners in Confederation are that upset about something,

00:02:23.320 and they have a referendum where the people's will explicitly says that this isn't just,

00:02:28.220 you know, some politicians trying to score points,

00:02:30.400 or it's not just somebody, yeah, doing political purposes.

00:02:35.680 This is, the people are upset enough that they want some change,

00:02:39.160 that you can't just ignore it, and that you have to engage with the province in good faith

00:02:43.420 and discuss the problem.

00:02:46.420 But you don't have to go along with it.

00:02:49.040 You have to have a discussion.

00:02:50.320 Of course.

00:02:50.640 Is that basically the standard?

00:02:51.840 There's an amending formula for the Constitution,

00:02:53.840 and that this does not in any way meet that threshold of seven provinces and 50%.

00:03:00.720 But it's just a way of, you know, arguably letting off steam,

00:03:05.580 but more importantly, re-engaging with a province that has a real problem

00:03:09.920 and is frustrated and needs something addressed.

00:03:14.120 So it's just kind of common sense that you wouldn't just brush that off

00:03:18.400 in a way that it's probably easier to brush off a political leader

00:03:24.880 who's asking the feds for something.

00:03:28.300 Maybe he's in a different party.

00:03:30.020 Maybe there's other motives going on.

00:03:32.460 But when the people of a province speak up loudly that they need something addressed,

00:03:36.760 the federal government has a duty to address it.

00:03:40.020 And that's actually a very key point,

00:03:42.300 because a few weeks back when Premier Jason Kenney was sitting down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:03:47.900 Premier Kenney had put to him the upcoming Alberta Senate elections,

00:03:52.280 which are also going to be in October,

00:03:53.660 and had asked Trudeau to hold off on appointing any senators for Alberta

00:03:58.220 until Albertans could put a candidate forward.

00:04:01.600 And Trudeau basically said, yeah, yeah, that's not how we do things,

00:04:04.260 and gave, to use your words, the brush off there.

00:04:07.500 So in that sense, having an obligation to, no, no, no, you're going to sit down,

00:04:12.460 you're going to talk about this, forces you to respond to it,

00:04:16.220 because then, you know, voters, other premiers, the media can ask you,

00:04:20.720 okay, well, you know, what did he say?

00:04:22.300 What did you say to him?

00:04:23.280 And I think there's an obligation to at least take something out of it

00:04:27.060 if you have to go into that engagement process.

00:04:29.680 Yeah.

00:04:29.860 And another example is the, another sort of thing that critics of this approach point to is,

00:04:37.500 why can't you just bring it up with the premiers at the Council of the Federation?

00:04:40.920 Why can't you just get the work, work through the normal channels?

00:04:44.360 And I would say, well, one, there's about five provinces who receive a lot of their funding from this,

00:04:52.140 or at least a significant chunk that they're not going to want to just, you know, go with,

00:04:56.040 they don't want any negotiations, because they're pretty happy with how things are.

00:04:59.640 But there are five other provinces that are paying into this without getting anything.

00:05:04.380 So you could have a little five-on-five at the premiers conference.

00:05:08.000 But when you look at 2019, the Alberta government did get every single premier to unanimously agree

00:05:16.440 to give Alberta a significant retroactive payment of $5 billion, $6 billion.

00:05:21.140 Because in 2015, Alberta's revenues dropped $8 billion.

00:05:25.700 That's 20% drop in revenues.

00:05:27.740 And so there's this program called fiscal stabilization that is meant to cushion the blow

00:05:33.360 when you have a sudden drop in revenues like that.

00:05:35.500 But it was, it had a 60 per person cap, $60 per person, which meant that Alberta got $250 million

00:05:42.600 on that $8 billion drop, which was about a 3% insurance payment, which is obviously not stabilizing anything.

00:05:50.260 And so partly out of recognition for all that Albertans have contributed to other provinces

00:05:54.600 through our taxes that we pay, which is much more than we get back,

00:05:59.160 the rest of the premiers said, please give Alberta this retroactive, like change the program,

00:06:04.380 which could benefit all of them conceivably, but give Alberta a retroactive payment,

00:06:08.960 which obviously only helps Alberta.

00:06:10.960 And it's pretty unusual, I think, to get every premier to agree to give one province money.

00:06:15.940 I mean, it's easy to get them to all agree to ask the feds to give them all more money.

00:06:20.560 But this was a pretty significant win, and the feds just ignored it.

00:06:25.160 So, I don't know, I mean, part of this is, for those who criticize the process,

00:06:31.360 well, what would you do?

00:06:32.280 Because the status quo isn't good enough.

00:06:34.700 There's a lot of people in Alberta that are getting increasingly frustrated.

00:06:38.940 You know, I put out posts on these topics,

00:06:41.840 and the number of people who are so upset that they want to leave the country

00:06:45.780 that speak up is, you know, troubling.

00:06:49.760 So, we have a serious problem here, and it's not just, you know,

00:06:52.820 it's too easy, I think, for some politicians and groups in Canada

00:06:57.140 to sort of write off Alberta, demonize Alberta, mock Alberta.

00:07:01.760 But that's not going to last much longer before more serious things happen.

00:07:06.680 So, I feel like this referendum is a really good sort of first step in saying,

00:07:11.380 hey, we're not happy, can we get this addressed?

00:07:13.700 Yeah, and I think you are right to point out that chapter in Canada

00:07:19.320 where other provinces had agreed to give Alberta money

00:07:22.560 because that actually reinforces that the equalization formula

00:07:27.100 does not entirely capture the economic realities.

00:07:30.860 And this is still a problem that Alberta is contending with now,

00:07:33.700 where the economic situation in Alberta,

00:07:36.400 which has been hit not just by the pandemic, like many other provinces,

00:07:39.400 but oil and gas related issues as well,

00:07:42.680 it's still not being reflected in the equalization formula.

00:07:46.900 So, even if someone is committed to equalization,

00:07:49.760 surely they should be able to look and say,

00:07:51.400 the way we do this isn't really working right now.

00:07:54.680 Yeah, the equalization, yeah, so there's two things going on here.

00:07:57.900 One is the symbolic attempt to get some recognition

00:08:01.500 for all that Albertans have contributed

00:08:03.320 and how little we've gotten back from the country for decades.

00:08:05.980 But then, you know, so this is an avenue to address that.

00:08:11.500 But equalization is seriously flawed.

00:08:14.460 The provinces since 2015 have come much, much closer together

00:08:19.540 in fiscal capacity is the way they measure

00:08:22.160 the kind of wealth and ability to pay for services.

00:08:26.020 Alberta, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan,

00:08:28.000 we used to lead the country in 2015,

00:08:30.080 and it's really come down with the energy downturn

00:08:33.180 so that the provinces are, it was about a $5,000 gap

00:08:37.000 between the median have and have not.

00:08:38.980 Now it's about $1,600.

00:08:40.640 And when you think of the different costs of services

00:08:42.560 in places like the Maritimes in Quebec

00:08:44.760 versus Ontario and Vancouver and Alberta,

00:08:48.280 that's basically nothing.

00:08:49.460 So the provinces are more close together than ever,

00:08:53.460 which means equalization is less necessary

00:08:55.660 than ever, if at all.

00:08:57.040 You know, I would argue maybe New Brunswick and PEI

00:09:00.340 are far enough below the average

00:09:02.080 that maybe something there would be fair.

00:09:05.120 But Quebec and Ontario are getting increasingly close,

00:09:08.600 especially if you use a factor like the cost of services.

00:09:12.020 So it's less necessary than ever,

00:09:14.020 and yet the payments have grown to $21 billion this year.

00:09:17.820 They're tied to GDP, and they grow every year

00:09:20.300 regardless of the need.

00:09:21.540 And so we've got massive payments going out,

00:09:25.480 at least $10 billion more than what is justified,

00:09:29.340 which means that there's just $10 billion

00:09:31.220 that all Canadians are paying into

00:09:33.460 that are going just to 30% of the country

00:09:36.260 to pay for provincial services.

00:09:38.360 And this is at a time when Alberta is saying,

00:09:40.440 we need more funding for provincial services.

00:09:42.860 Ontario is saying,

00:09:44.280 we need more funding for provincial services.

00:09:46.580 Well, you're paying for provincial services

00:09:49.040 a lot more than you think.

00:09:50.800 It's just that Ottawa is sending those dollars

00:09:52.760 specifically to five provinces.

00:09:56.420 One of the concerns that I've seen from this,

00:09:59.600 and you touched on it a bit earlier

00:10:00.920 when you talked about the independence sentiment,

00:10:02.900 is that a lot of people that think

00:10:04.540 this doesn't go nearly far enough,

00:10:06.500 that think, you know what,

00:10:07.120 the problems are not going to be fixed.

00:10:08.740 They're certainly not going to be fixed now.

00:10:10.280 And it seems like there's a bit of resistance

00:10:12.240 to this referendum that's coming

00:10:14.760 from the other side of it,

00:10:16.700 from the independence.

00:10:17.540 And I'm curious, as someone in Alberta,

00:10:19.960 how much you see that as being a factor here?

00:10:23.680 Yeah, I mean, I understand the frustration.

00:10:27.540 It is frustrating.

00:10:28.660 But at the same time,

00:10:29.600 we're only sort of 11.5% of the country.

00:10:33.500 We have to understand,

00:10:34.920 and we have sort of different interests

00:10:36.400 than a lot of other sections of the country.

00:10:38.920 So there is a sort of systemic issue

00:10:42.960 that we will always have to deal with.

00:10:45.400 And so I do understand why people think

00:10:47.560 it's fruitless and hopeless

00:10:49.540 and we'll never get anywhere near close enough.

00:10:54.120 But from our perspective,

00:10:55.840 is that we need to try.

00:10:57.460 And there isn't really too many groups

00:11:00.640 that have really tried to do what we're doing,

00:11:03.520 which is telling the rest of Canada the facts,

00:11:06.560 saying, here's how much Albertans have been contributing.

00:11:09.900 Here's how vital Alberta's economy

00:11:11.760 and economic prosperity has been

00:11:13.600 to the rest of the country.

00:11:14.940 Here's all the spillover effects

00:11:17.260 when it comes to either taxes or jobs

00:11:19.380 that the rest of the country benefits from.

00:11:21.560 And just try to shift the perspective

00:11:24.280 for the rest of the country

00:11:26.140 from thinking that somehow Alberta's lucky

00:11:29.240 and has a bunch of free money

00:11:31.380 and that somehow their success comes at our expense

00:11:34.400 and say, no, Alberta's energy sector

00:11:37.200 is a huge source of productivity.

00:11:41.240 And when it's functioning well,

00:11:43.240 the spillover effects

00:11:44.360 for the rest of the country are enormous.

00:11:46.480 And so, you know, get people to realize

00:11:49.180 that a good Alberta is really good

00:11:51.140 for the whole country

00:11:51.880 and that the country needs that prosperity

00:11:53.720 right now more than ever

00:11:54.760 as we try to come out of this COVID mess.

00:11:56.800 And so we're going to do a good faith exercise here

00:12:00.020 and we'll see where that can get us.

00:12:02.980 Bill Buick, Executive Director of Fairness Alberta.

00:12:06.200 Great op-ed in the National Post

00:12:08.260 called,

00:12:09.440 If Albertans vote against equalization,

00:12:11.580 the feds will have a duty to listen.

00:12:14.320 Bill, thanks so much for coming on.

00:12:15.720 Great to talk to you.

00:12:16.140 Yeah, my pleasure, Andrew.

00:12:17.100 And it's a pretty critical time

00:12:18.540 in the next few months here.

00:12:19.600 So I encourage people to go to fairnessalberta.ca

00:12:22.700 and see the information we're providing.

00:12:24.760 And we can only function

00:12:26.740 on the generosity of donors.

00:12:28.840 So please consider a donation

00:12:30.320 if you like what we're doing.

00:12:32.780 Perfect. Thanks very much.

00:12:34.060 Thank you, Andrew.

00:12:35.800 That was Bill Buick of Fairness Alberta.

00:12:38.860 We've obviously been covering Alberta independence

00:12:41.300 because no one else in the mainstream media

00:12:44.100 is in any substantive way.

00:12:45.880 And when they do,

00:12:46.980 it's oftentimes through the lens of,

00:12:49.140 oh, look at these, you know,

00:12:50.120 disgruntled hillbillies,

00:12:51.160 not realizing the very real concerns

00:12:53.120 and very longstanding concerns

00:12:55.160 that people in the West have.

00:12:56.980 And it isn't just about Alberta.

00:12:58.480 It's about a province's ability,

00:13:00.540 a province's right to assert its own agenda.

00:13:03.720 And it's interesting that we have

00:13:05.000 all of these politicians

00:13:06.040 that will tiptoe around Quebec,

00:13:08.280 refuse to tell Quebec no.

00:13:10.400 But when Alberta tries to do the same thing, 1.00

00:13:13.420 in fact, not even the same thing,

00:13:15.360 a pared back,

00:13:16.360 a pared down version of it,

00:13:18.100 it gets mocked and vilified.

00:13:19.980 So that's why we're standing up

00:13:21.220 and I hope you'll continue to

00:13:22.600 as we head towards the referendum in October.

00:13:25.840 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:13:28.180 Support the program by donating to True North

00:13:30.240 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - August 10, 2021

Federal government has a 'duty' to listen to Alberta equalization referendum

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