Newfoundland and Saskatchewan are now becoming prosperous, and the entire vast, amorphous, federal money-transferring apparatus has become an elephantine anachronism. It is also an unjust taxation on Ontario, which as the only province that was ever a real success at manufacturing, is paying a heavy price for the rise of the Canadian dollar and the migration of secondary industry to cheap-labour countries.
Dalton McGuinty is right. And to the limited extent that regional economic inequalities should be addressed other than by market forces, it should be from the general revenues of the federal government. Some provinces should not have to pay Danegeld to others, with Ottawa, collecting, redistributing and taking perennial credit for national self-preservation.
Everyone's favourite "Guest of the great American people." Bang on!
