Hot off her Ontario electoral win, Kathleen Wynne is taking aim at Ottawa. The federal government´s equalization program distributes money between the provinces to help those with less fiscal capabilities deliver the same services. In an interview with the CBC, Wynne noted the unfortunate fact that:
There's an unfairness in the way money comes back to the province of Ontario. There's $1.28 billion that really should be coming back into our province for programs and services.
It´s a little ironic that she understands the “unfairness” of a system that distributes money between the provinces at the hands of a higher level of power, but that she doesn´t see the same problem within her own government.
After all, her electoral win relied on grabbing the Toronto vote. One way she secured this group was by pledging a large amount of infrastructure spending which would be paid for out of the province´s pockets (with some help from Ottawa, of course).
This is the same opprobrium she sees with the federal system. After all, it will be the taxpayers in counties far away from Toronto that will be paying for the infrastructure she promised. Maybe it´s time for Wynne to step back and realize the pain Ottawa causes Ontario is the same that she will soon be causing the plethora of communities within her own province.
(Originally posted at Mises Canada.)
