The cash flow pipeline to Ottawa
Posted Jan 15, 2011 8:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Albertans sent $14 billion more to Ottawa, last year, than we received in return services.
That’s according to a report from Alberta Finance, which says this province has the biggest outflow in the country.
Two years ago that disparity topped out at $20 billion, and over the last six years the total outflow from Alberta rings in at $102 billion.
Among the amounts going from Alberta to Ottawa last year: $19.1 billion in personal income tax and $6.3 billion for taxes such as GST, alcohol, tobacco and fuel taxes. In contrast, Ottawa returned $14 billion less in revenue to Albertans in the form employment insurance, old age security and other benefits to Albertans.
The Federal Minister of State for Finance, Alberta MP Ted Menzies, justifies the swing between taxation and federal services. The Tory MP tells the Calgary Herald, Albertans pay the same taxes as other Canadians but enjoy better wages and higher employment.
But Provincial Finance Minister Ted Morton wonders, “Are we supposed to keep taxes low, so the federal government can take more?”
As well as Alberta, only Ontario and British Columbia were net contributors to Ottawa for the last year (2008) that stats are available.
