equalization

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For anyone who has paid attention to the student protests/riots in Quebec over the past few months and knows anything about the vast sums of money transferred between governments in this country, there has been no shortage of ridiculous demands from the Quebec students who are “on strike.” Demands include free tuition and an end to functioning free markets. But their silliness—not shared by most students nor by all Quebecois—has been compounded by mythmaking from Quebec politicians about who ultimately foots the bill for so much of Quebec’s existing poor economic policy.


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The 1990s was an economically dismal decade for British Columbia. The province effectively missed the prosperity party enjoyed by the rest of Canada due largely to poor economic policies. As a result, the province actually became a “have-not” province and a recipient of federal equalization payments.

We witnessed young, educated and skilled British Columbians leave the province for opportunities elsewhere and BC had the lowest per person GDP growth among the provinces between 1990 and 2000.