Push for fossil fuel divestment gains momentum

Environmentalists worldwide are pushing investors to stop putting their money into fossil fuel investments, and it looks like that push for divestment is gaining momentum. 

A case in point: the first Fossil Free Canada convergence. November 7 to 9, over 120 students from 15 universities across Canada came together in Montreal for the convergence, where they planned future collaborations and learned new skills to apply in their divestment campaigns.  

Ontario shortchanged by equalization payment rules

Ontario is deeply in debt — roughly $265 billion — and has a massive annual deficit, now about $12 billion. It is slashing government services and freezing public-sector wages.

Oh, and we are still giving away big money — $11 billion at last count — to our fellow Canadians.

That’s the tally released this month by the Mowat Centre, a local think tank bankrolled largely by the Ontario government to get the province’s message out — in hopes of keeping our cash from leaking out.

Ottawa defends amount of transfer payments to Ontario

Ottawa says it has been more than generous to Ontario despite a University of Toronto think tank report that says the province is being shortchanged $11 billion in transfer payments.

Dan Miles, a spokesman for federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, said that the $20 billion the federal government transfers to Ontario is an all-time high.

“This represents a whopping nearly 80 per cent increase from under the old Liberal federal government, including almost $3.2 billion through Equalization, $12 billion through the Canada Health Transfer, and $4.7 billion through the Canada Social Transfer,” Miles said in a statement to the Star Monday.

Equalization Payments: Ontario Still Paying More Than It Gets Despite 'Have-Not' Status, Study Finds

Live in Ontario? You may be getting ripped off by the federal government.

According to a new report from the Mowat Centre, Ontario contributes $11 billion more annually to the federal government than it gets back in services and spending, despite the fact it has become a “have-not” province.

New ‘fiscal gap’ study finds Ottawa milking Ontario of $11 billion a year

Ontario is being milked by the federal government to the tune of $11 billion a year at a time when the province can ill afford it, a new study on the so-called “fiscal gap” concludes.

That means the province’s taxpayers send $11 billion more to Ottawa than they get back in funding and services, says the report to be released Monday by the Mowat Centre, a public policy think-tank at the University of Toronto.

Equalization only promotes lazy spending habits

OTTAWA - Equalization doesn't just reward failure. It encourages it. Seven Canadian provinces were chronic recipients of the program from the very beginning and all have been economic and financial underperformers that bleed ambitious young people to more dynamic parts of the country. Newfoundland and Saskatchewan are no longer recipients of equalization and are struggling to reverse economic and demographic decline, but Quebec, Manitoba and the other three Atlantic provinces are still stuck in it.

Equalization tensions could ‘destroy unity’ in Canada: Ex-Bank of Canada chief David Dodge

OTTAWA — Tensions over wealth-sharing between rich and poor provinces could ultimately “destroy” national unity, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge argues in an essay published Tuesday by a prominent national think-tank.

Dodge was the co-author of one of two essays published by the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy underlining concerns about growing wealth disparity as Ottawa and the provinces head into negotiations to renew the current equalization formula agreement, which expires in 2014.

Equalization: Is Quebec committing a hold-up?

Is it normal that Albertans pay the much too generous social programs to which the people of Quebec are treating themselves through equalization, especially when they are being patronized regarding the environment by people that refuse to exploit their own gas and oil resources?

That would summarize Danielle Smith's view, the very libertarian leader of the Wildrose. In last April's elections, this party to the right of the right seriously threatened the Conservatives, who have been in power in Alberta for the last 41 years. Are her claims well founded?

Financial transfers within the Canadian federation are a complex phenomenon, with sensitivity to the vagaries of the economic climate. It's an area in which simplistic views are at a greater risk to feed prejudice than to illuminate discussions.

The ‘political wife’ of old has vanished

France's new President, François Hollande, is not married to his partner, the glamorous political journalist Valérie Trierweiler, and no one seems to care. Germany's President, Joachim Gauck, is not married to his partner, the journalist Daniela Schadt, and no one seems to care. Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York, is not married to his partner, the domesticity guru Sandra Lee, and no one seems to care. The list could easily be continued.

Is the adoring political spouse – so much a part of the political landscape that she has her own iconography, from knit suits to the dreamy upward gaze at her man – receding into the past?

Time for Quebec to end equalization addiction: Montreal think-tank

Quebec may not be able to keep its gold-plated welfare state, but either way, it is time to break the province’s 55-year “welfare trap” addiction to equalization payments, according to an economic note by the Montreal Economic Institute.

“Quebecers are well aware that we’re a have-not province, and there’s no pride in this,” said Yourri Chassin, an economist with the Institute.

The four page note, released Tuesday, calls for Quebec to ramp up oil, shale and electricity development, while simultaneously calling on Ottawa to grant the province a five to eight year “grace period” before clawing back equalization payments.

“There’s a bit of incentive needed to kickstart this process,” said Mr. Chassin.

Dwight Duncan demands Ottawa release censored report showing Ontario is shortchanged by equalization

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is demanding Ottawa release a classified federal report that reveals Ontario gets shortchanged by the national equalization wealth-sharing scheme.

In the wake of revelations in the Star, Duncan wrote Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Thursday urging the federal government to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the 67-page study.

“The report makes it increasingly clear that because of the policies of the government of Canada, Ontario families are subsidizing programs and services in other parts of Canada that Ontarians themselves do not enjoy,” the Ontario treasurer wrote.

Duncan fired off his letter after the Star obtained an uncensored version of a 2006 report entitled, “An Operational Expenditure Need Equalization Formula for Canada.”

Written by Peter Gusen, then director of federal-provincial relations at the finance department in Ottawa, it concluded Ontario and B.C. are at a severe disadvantage to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

That’s because the federal government does not take into account that it’s more expensive to live and work in some provinces than others when doling out funds from the $15.4-billion equalization pool.