This is from Buckdog Calvert's suit relies on considerations of fairness and equity rather than any contractual promise. It should be noted that not only is Saskatchewan miffed about the equalisation aspects of the budget but so are the Maritime provinces, particularly Nova Scotia and its Conservative premier as well as Newfoundland and Labrador. It is noteworthy that none of the Conservative MPs said bood but supported the budget as did all the Maritime Conservatives except for one.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Why Harper Needs To Have His Sorry Tory Ass Sued Off By Saskatchewan!
I hope the people of Saskatchewan successfully sue the ass off our lying Conservative Prime Minister and his 12 lying Saskatchewan Members of Parliament.
Here is why:
Excerpt from Stephen Harper’s Letter to Premier Calvert, June 10, 2004
“The Conservative Party of Canada will alter the equalization program to remove all non-renewable resources from the formula, as well as move the program to a ten-province standard.”
Conservative Party Platform 2004 ('Demanding Better')
“A Conservative government will also revisit the equalization formula. We will move towards a ten-province standard that excludes non-renewable resource revenues from the equalization formula, and do so in a manner that ensures no provinces receiving equalization will receive less money during the transition to the new formula than the current formula provides.”
Conservative Party Platform 2006 ('Standing Up For Canada')
“Work to achieve with the provinces permanent changes to the equalization formula which would ensure that non-renewable natural resource revenue is removed from the equalization formula to encourage economic growth. We will ensure that no province is adversely affected from changes to the equalization formula.”
Question by Stephen Harper to Prime Minister Paul Martin in the House of Commons, November 16, 2005
“The prime minister is also failing Saskatchewan on equalization. The government promised to reform the equalization program in 2004 for Saskatchewan. The government now says it will not get to that until at least 2006, costing Saskatchewan over 750-million dollars in lost revenue. When will the prime minister overrule his finance minister and make the changes necessary, so that Saskatchewan does not lose this money?”
In the recent Federal Budget, Harper 'said' that he was removing non-renewable resources from the equalization formula. He then set a cap on the amount Saskatchewan could qualify for!! At no point, in ANY of Stephen Harper's statements, did the concept of a 'cap' get mentioned.
Where I come from, we call this, 'lying through your teeth!'
Government of Saskatchewan News Release
posted by leftdog at Wednesday, June 13, 2007 | Permalink
Showing posts with label equalisation payments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equalisation payments. Show all posts
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Different views on the budget and equalization.
A Toronto Star editorial claims that the Tory budget offers a more than generous equalisation scheme. According to the anonymous editorialist the Atlantic provinces want to have their cake and eat it too. The article is here. I don't suppose that the Star is headquartered in Ontario has anything to do with their viewpoint!
A Halifax paper on the other hand claims that under the new equalisation formula the province of Nova Scotia will be out billions over 20 years. The article is here.
Finally Premier Calvert in Sask. is going to court to sue the government. The suit is not over broken promises but about the fairness of the equalisation formula. Calvert claims that since oil and gas belong to provinces income from them should not be counted in the equalisation formula. Apparently it is not according to the new formula or so the CBC article below claims. I guess what is unfair are the caps on equalisation. It seems to me that since oil and gas revenues will obviously make a province much richer it should count in the formula in some manner.
Sask. will sue over equalization: Calvert
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 | 4:42 PM CT
CBC News
Saskatchewan will launch a lawsuit against the federal government next week over equalization payments, Premier Lorne Calvert said Wednesday.
Calvert said a lawsuit isn't his preferred way to deal with the dispute over the federal program, but he tried negotiations and calling on Saskatchewan MPs to vote against the budget and nothing worked.
"This is a very poor way to run a country," Calvert said.
Equalization is the $12 billion program under which Ottawa makes payments to poorer provinces so they can afford the same services and tax rates as richer provinces.
Thanks to surging oil and gas revenues, Saskatchewan has received virtually no equalization money in the past few years.
During the election campaign, the Conservatives promised to take non-renewable resources like oil and gas out of the equalization formula — a change Calvert said would mean an extra $800 million a year for provincial coffers.
The March 19 budget did remove oil and gas from the formula, but added a cap on equalization payments. As a result, Saskatchewan is getting $226 million this year and nothing next year.
Calvert said the legal action would not be over a broken campaign promise.
If a lawsuit was filed for every broken Conservative promise, there wouldn't be enough lawyers, he said.
Instead, he said, the suit would be based on the sections of the constitution that require the equalization program to be fair and equitable.
The Saskatchewan government will also argue the constitutional principle that natural resources belong to the people of Saskatchewan and the current equalization program violates that principle.
Earlier in the day, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Gerry Ritz insisted in a CBC interview that there had been no promise broken and that his constituents are telling him the budget is an excellent one for Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Tory MPs vote for budget
Governments in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have also been up in arms over the equalization program.
Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey was kicked out of the Conservative caucus after he voted against the government's budget bill last week.
Casey did the same thing again in the final budget vote Tuesday night. The budget passed a final vote in the House of Commons with all 12 Saskatchewan Conservative MPs voting in favour.
Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre MP Tom Lukiwski came out swinging, however, accusing Calvert of launching a lawsuit as a provincial election ploy.
"He's got an election coming up. He's 25 points points down in the polls," Lukiwski said. "This is grandstanding, a last-ditch effort for him to try to change the channel. I think he has no basis for his lawsuit but I welcome his challenge."
Quizzed during question period about equalization, Prime Minister Stephen Harper claimed he was baffled by developments in Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces.
"I don't even understand what they're saying any more," he said.
A Halifax paper on the other hand claims that under the new equalisation formula the province of Nova Scotia will be out billions over 20 years. The article is here.
Finally Premier Calvert in Sask. is going to court to sue the government. The suit is not over broken promises but about the fairness of the equalisation formula. Calvert claims that since oil and gas belong to provinces income from them should not be counted in the equalisation formula. Apparently it is not according to the new formula or so the CBC article below claims. I guess what is unfair are the caps on equalisation. It seems to me that since oil and gas revenues will obviously make a province much richer it should count in the formula in some manner.
Sask. will sue over equalization: Calvert
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 | 4:42 PM CT
CBC News
Saskatchewan will launch a lawsuit against the federal government next week over equalization payments, Premier Lorne Calvert said Wednesday.
Calvert said a lawsuit isn't his preferred way to deal with the dispute over the federal program, but he tried negotiations and calling on Saskatchewan MPs to vote against the budget and nothing worked.
"This is a very poor way to run a country," Calvert said.
Equalization is the $12 billion program under which Ottawa makes payments to poorer provinces so they can afford the same services and tax rates as richer provinces.
Thanks to surging oil and gas revenues, Saskatchewan has received virtually no equalization money in the past few years.
During the election campaign, the Conservatives promised to take non-renewable resources like oil and gas out of the equalization formula — a change Calvert said would mean an extra $800 million a year for provincial coffers.
The March 19 budget did remove oil and gas from the formula, but added a cap on equalization payments. As a result, Saskatchewan is getting $226 million this year and nothing next year.
Calvert said the legal action would not be over a broken campaign promise.
If a lawsuit was filed for every broken Conservative promise, there wouldn't be enough lawyers, he said.
Instead, he said, the suit would be based on the sections of the constitution that require the equalization program to be fair and equitable.
The Saskatchewan government will also argue the constitutional principle that natural resources belong to the people of Saskatchewan and the current equalization program violates that principle.
Earlier in the day, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Gerry Ritz insisted in a CBC interview that there had been no promise broken and that his constituents are telling him the budget is an excellent one for Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Tory MPs vote for budget
Governments in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have also been up in arms over the equalization program.
Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey was kicked out of the Conservative caucus after he voted against the government's budget bill last week.
Casey did the same thing again in the final budget vote Tuesday night. The budget passed a final vote in the House of Commons with all 12 Saskatchewan Conservative MPs voting in favour.
Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre MP Tom Lukiwski came out swinging, however, accusing Calvert of launching a lawsuit as a provincial election ploy.
"He's got an election coming up. He's 25 points points down in the polls," Lukiwski said. "This is grandstanding, a last-ditch effort for him to try to change the channel. I think he has no basis for his lawsuit but I welcome his challenge."
Quizzed during question period about equalization, Prime Minister Stephen Harper claimed he was baffled by developments in Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces.
"I don't even understand what they're saying any more," he said.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Newfoundland Labrador needs 11 billion more in equalisation
The number of federal seats in Newfoundland Labrador are miniscule compared to Quebec. In Quebec the Conservatives look to be doing well after addressing the fiscal imbalance.
$11-billion rift found on equalization: economist
Tougher interpretation could see Atlantic Accord benefits end in 2012
Last Updated: Friday, April 13, 2007 | 8:30 AM NT
CBC News
A stricter interpretation of new equalization rules could widen the rift between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government over equalization, with billions of dollars in oil royalties at stake, according to a new independent review.
Economist Wade Locke says a revised analysis of the new equalization formula shows less revenue for Newfoundland and Labrador.
(CBC)
Memorial University economist Wade Locke — who last week revealed that Newfoundland and Labrador stands to gain an additional $5.6 billion through the federal Conservatives' new equalization formula — has recrunched his numbers.
Locke revisited his analysis after learning that the assumptions he originally used may not be applied in Ottawa in the coming years.
"I've gone back to check into it and it required me to do some new calculations, which I've done some preliminary estimates on," Locke told CBC News Thursday.
Locke issued a statement early Friday outlining his revised findings, and said he will not comment on the political implications of his analysis. A draft of Locke's findings was circulated in political circles earlier this week.
In his new analysis, Locke found that a stricter interpretation of equalization rules — as laid out in the federal budget in March — could make it difficult for Newfoundland and Labrador to qualify for the Atlantic Accord after 2012.
Last week, Locke — who spoke to a packed auditorium at Memorial University — said that the province would receive $24.1 billion under equalization between now and 2020.
That's substantially more than the status quo of $18.5 billion, but substantially less than the $28.6 billion that Premier Danny Williams says the province would receive had Prime Minister Stephen Harper lived up to a written 2006 campaign promise to leave non-renewable resources out of the equalization formula.
Federal minister Loyola Hearn now describes Locke's analysis as hypothetical.
(CBC)
Locke's new analysis, however, dramatically changes the equalization math, and exposes a much wider rift between the two levels of government. Locke said he received the clarification directly from the federal government.
If the new interpretation, which involves a complicated formula that determines fiscal capacity, is applied, then the new equalization formula will deliver about $17.5 billion — or $1 billion less than the status quo — to Newfoundland and Labrador between now and 2020.
That puts a gap of about $11 billion between what Williams said the province ought to receive and what the federal government may actually deliver.
'Strictly hypothetical,' Hearn says
Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative, said Locke's numbers are premature.
Hearn, who just last week issued a statement boasting that Locke's analysis last week proved that the federal Conservatives were not attempting to hurt Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC News Thursday that the numbers are not definitive.
"What we're talking now is strictly hypothetical stuff, that isn't doing any of us any good, because we have no idea what figures we are talking about," Hearn said Thursday.
"If there is a problem, all I can assure you is, No. 1, we have made commitments [and] these commitments will be adhered too," he said.
"And if there is something that happens which is negative towards our province, that's where I get involved."
Williams is travelling outside the province this week and has not issued any comment on Locke's new analysis.
Williams and Harper have been locked in a rhetorical war over equalization since March, with Williams launching a national advertising campaign that cast Harper as a promise-breaker.
Harper responded in kind with a campaign — launched only in Newfoundland and Labrador — that criticizes Williams for not respecting facts and tells the province that it has been "blessed" by the new equalization formula
$11-billion rift found on equalization: economist
Tougher interpretation could see Atlantic Accord benefits end in 2012
Last Updated: Friday, April 13, 2007 | 8:30 AM NT
CBC News
A stricter interpretation of new equalization rules could widen the rift between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government over equalization, with billions of dollars in oil royalties at stake, according to a new independent review.
Economist Wade Locke says a revised analysis of the new equalization formula shows less revenue for Newfoundland and Labrador.
(CBC)
Memorial University economist Wade Locke — who last week revealed that Newfoundland and Labrador stands to gain an additional $5.6 billion through the federal Conservatives' new equalization formula — has recrunched his numbers.
Locke revisited his analysis after learning that the assumptions he originally used may not be applied in Ottawa in the coming years.
"I've gone back to check into it and it required me to do some new calculations, which I've done some preliminary estimates on," Locke told CBC News Thursday.
Locke issued a statement early Friday outlining his revised findings, and said he will not comment on the political implications of his analysis. A draft of Locke's findings was circulated in political circles earlier this week.
In his new analysis, Locke found that a stricter interpretation of equalization rules — as laid out in the federal budget in March — could make it difficult for Newfoundland and Labrador to qualify for the Atlantic Accord after 2012.
Last week, Locke — who spoke to a packed auditorium at Memorial University — said that the province would receive $24.1 billion under equalization between now and 2020.
That's substantially more than the status quo of $18.5 billion, but substantially less than the $28.6 billion that Premier Danny Williams says the province would receive had Prime Minister Stephen Harper lived up to a written 2006 campaign promise to leave non-renewable resources out of the equalization formula.
Federal minister Loyola Hearn now describes Locke's analysis as hypothetical.
(CBC)
Locke's new analysis, however, dramatically changes the equalization math, and exposes a much wider rift between the two levels of government. Locke said he received the clarification directly from the federal government.
If the new interpretation, which involves a complicated formula that determines fiscal capacity, is applied, then the new equalization formula will deliver about $17.5 billion — or $1 billion less than the status quo — to Newfoundland and Labrador between now and 2020.
That puts a gap of about $11 billion between what Williams said the province ought to receive and what the federal government may actually deliver.
'Strictly hypothetical,' Hearn says
Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative, said Locke's numbers are premature.
Hearn, who just last week issued a statement boasting that Locke's analysis last week proved that the federal Conservatives were not attempting to hurt Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC News Thursday that the numbers are not definitive.
"What we're talking now is strictly hypothetical stuff, that isn't doing any of us any good, because we have no idea what figures we are talking about," Hearn said Thursday.
"If there is a problem, all I can assure you is, No. 1, we have made commitments [and] these commitments will be adhered too," he said.
"And if there is something that happens which is negative towards our province, that's where I get involved."
Williams is travelling outside the province this week and has not issued any comment on Locke's new analysis.
Williams and Harper have been locked in a rhetorical war over equalization since March, with Williams launching a national advertising campaign that cast Harper as a promise-breaker.
Harper responded in kind with a campaign — launched only in Newfoundland and Labrador — that criticizes Williams for not respecting facts and tells the province that it has been "blessed" by the new equalization formula
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