And the Rest of It

Isn't Canada Post good enough?:

Public Works Minister Anita Anand is justifying a pandemic distribution deal with Amazon by claiming it’s a “Canadian company”. Staff would not disclose terms of the Amazon contract after a deputy minister suggested the firm could profit despite cabinet claims to the contrary: “Is Canada Post not capable of doing the same thing?”

That's an interesting idea but everyone knows that there will be no industry moved back to Canada, we will rely on China to fill in that void and be wondering the same thing about manufacturing when the next pandemic cripples the country:

We need to make more products in Canada to keep the jobs here and to keep us safe for the next time there’s a global crisis.

Ditto for oil:

As the requests for help mount, so do the objections from those who say they don’t want taxpayer dollars going towards helping the oil patch. They shouldn’t worry so much. The $15 billion to $30 billion of backstopped credit Premier Jason Kenney is asking for — to help the energy industry survive an unprecedented perfect storm of events — largely comes from the energy industry, to begin with.

The pure numbers of just how much Alberta has contributed to the country tell both a compelling and troubling story. If the patch dries up, this country is in serious trouble.

The Canadian Energy Centre calculates that over the past 18 years the direct contributions Canada’s energy sector made to federal and provincial revenues between 2000 and 2018, is very conservatively estimated at $360 billion — more than any other sector by a long shot.

That amount does not include income taxes paid by the more than 800,000 Canadians employed directly or indirectly by the energy sector, or provincial rents and royalties paid between 2000 and 2007. (It’s omitted due to a change in Statistics Canada reporting; so $166 billion paid in royalties and other payments applies to the 2008- 2020 period only).

But what about the taxes Canadians pay in various provinces?

Back in 2009, when the world was suffering through the global financial crisis, Canada fared much better than most countries, largely thanks to the energy industry.

In 2012, Alberta Finance revealed that in 2009 Alberta was the only net contributor to confederation. In that year alone, it was estimated that Alberta sent $16 billion more to the federal government than it got back in federal transfers.

Put another way, it was estimated that in 2009 Albertans — including individuals and corporations — paid $36 billion gross in taxes to the federal government (including income tax from individuals and corporations, GST and EI), and received $20 billion back in transfers from the federal government (in EI benefits, Old Age Security, transfers to the province and other expenditures.) That means, the rest of Canada got to keep $16 billion net from Alberta that difficult year. On a per-capita basis that amounted to $4,356 for every man, woman and child in Alberta.

All other provinces were net recipients of federal transfers, with Quebec receiving $13.6 billion, Nova Scotia $7.2 billion, Manitoba $6.46 billion, New Brunswick $4.97 billion, Newfoundland $2.6 billion, Saskatchewan $1.3 billion, PEI $1.2 billion (or $8,500 per capita, which was the highest in Canada), Ontario $1.06 billion and B.C. a measly $11 million, according to Statistics Canada figures.

Because Alberta has a younger demographic and the oil and gas industry pays higher salaries than average, that tends to raise the average paycheque in Alberta. As a result, Albertans have paid more into federal coffers than they receive back.