Released on April 16, 2004
Premier Lorne Calvert announced today that he will meet with Prime Minister Paul Martin on April 17th in Ottawa."The Prime Minister has agreed to meet with me to discuss equalization - an issue of vital concern to the citizens of Saskatchewan," Calvert said.
The legislative assembly recently and unanimously passed a resolution that identified the inequitable way that Saskatchewan and its citizens are being treated by the federal government under the equalization program. The resolution also urges Premier Calvert to meet with the Prime Minister as soon as possible to seek a solution that will provide Saskatchewan with fair and equitable treatment within the equalization program and, thus, within the federation itself.
"The principle of equalization is enshrined in our Constitution," Calvert said. "The program was created to ensure that the provinces have sufficient revenues to provide comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. One of our main concerns is that this intent for the program is not being upheld. Provinces are treated inequitably, and Saskatchewan is getting the short end of the stick."
The Saskatchewan Government has asked the federal government for the same deal as the Atlantic provinces receive. Part of their oil revenues are sheltered. Only 70 per cent of their oil and gas revenues are included when determining equalization.
"We want the same treatment," Calvert said. "Instead, high tax-back rates applied to our resources have resulted in clawbacks of over 100 per cent of our resource revenues at times. And the current mining tax base is flawed as well, which penalizes our province between $40 and $50 million a year. We need changes to the equalization program that address these issues."
Recently, Queen's University Professor and noted economist Thomas Courchene echoed Saskatchewan's concerns in a paper for the Institute for Research on Public Policy entitled Confiscatory Equalization – The Intriguing Case of Saskatchewan's Vanishing Energy Revenues. In his paper, Professor Courchene highlights the fact that Saskatchewan does not receive the same treatment of oil and gas revenues as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Professor Courchene's paper is available online at www.irpp.org.
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