Provincial Subsidies

The welfare syndrome whereby people become so accustomed to having their living handed to them through 'social justice' re-distribution, sparing them the awkward necessity of actually taking responsibility for themselves as mature and independent salary-seekers works for groups just as it does for municipalities and for provinces.

It's tempting to rest easy and depend on the kindness of others. It may not, in the end, truly be a kindness. Sometimes generosity of spirit and forgiving attitudes result in a condition that halts initiative. Arrested adolescence ensues, and independence begins to look less attractive, more like a right royal pain in the job-seeking arse.

We've seen that Canadian political parties don't make the effort to raise their own working capital when taxpayer subsidies are generously provided. We've seen how generations of families become welfare recipients, seemingly unaware that they are themselves capable of providing for themselves, turning welfare from a temporary assist to a permanent need.

And then there's that brilliant idea of fair re-distribution of wealth from the 'have' provinces of the Canadian Confederation to the less well-endowed provinces. The concept of sharing, of ensuring that wherever one lived in Canada, services would be similar to all Canadians because the wealthy would be happy to subsidize all others.

It made us feel good, at first. That we were so generously inclined and more than prepared to give a hand up to our provincial peers. And those who took and never gave back began to view the arrangement as an expected entitlement, earned by default, simply because that was the way it worked. In the process, the vast amounts received relieved the 'have-not' provinces of making an effort to become self-reliant.

So what, really has been gained? Provinces that were deemed to be wealthy because of their natural resources, their established infrastructure and manufacturing base, the quality of their populations' entrepreneurial spirit, had much of what they earned drained off and transferred to those provinces who hadn't a clue about furthering their own enterprises.

Which also had the effect of not enabling the well-off provinces to invest in their own futures by updating and expanding and re-establishing their priorities. In a word, a well meaning federal-provincial initiative has become a drag and a drone, enabling the lazy and the unproductive to live beyond their means, and the enterprising and functioning to groan under an undeserved load.

Time to re-visit the purpose, structure and result of a social experiment that appears to have far outlived its perceived usefulness.