Equalization Payments The Quebec Pension Plan and The Potential For The Alberta Pension Plan: 420,000 Quebec public sector workers in education and health care on Strike – November 28, 2023
I used to compare the independent nation of Quebec to Argentina, but because Argentina recently voted for a Libertarian President, I may have to change my stance.
In this post, I focus on the potential for an Alberta Pension Plan. Public Sector workers and their PENSIONS rely on profits generated from the PRIVATE SECTOR.
Canadian Equalization Payment Numbers in 2023
- Quebec: $14 billion
- Manitoba: $3.5 billion
- Nova Scotia: $2.8 billion
- New Brunswick: $2.6 billion
- Prince Edward Island: $561 million
- Ontario: $421 million
Quebec is what in Canada call a perpetual have-not province, and because of the population of Quebec, they take the lion’s share of equalization payments that actually go directly to the Quebec public sector.
Well, if it’s one group of people I know who have a Quebec Pension, and that’s unionized public servants, and a large chunk of them are on strike right now, I’m going to take a wild guess and anticipate that their demands will be met, because, the Quebec provincial government can simply do what it always does and pass the bill to the deficit spending Federal government.
The current Federal government of Canada has grown its workforce; I read that the Justin Trudeau government has grown the FEDERAL public sector workforce by 100,000 people since 2015.
I have to assume these new federal workers also have pensions. Being that the current government makes its revenue via taxation and inflation, the equalization payments it sends to Quebec is clearly not enough, meaning that the federal government will also have to borrow money to keep itself solvent.
This stupidity by the federal government has put the Bank of Canada in a position to raise interest rates because if it doesn’t, it will signal to the FEDERAL government that it’s stupid ideas are working when they’re clearly creating shortfalls in revenue.
Now, for Quebec, sure, their provincial government can simply give into the demands of strikes; however, there comes a problem of PERCEIVED solvency. There’s still a balance sheet, and the forex markets don’t love the Canadian loonie the way they love the U.S. greenback, The Canadian military isn’t exactly protecting the borders of other nations.
If the Canadian dollar were to ever run into serious problems on the forex markets, the cost for IMPORTS would skyrocket, which is something most Canadians don’t even think about because why should they? It hasn’t happened yet.
But Canada is indeed swimming naked, and even if the Loonie doesn’t experience hyperinflation, consumer price inflation is definitely going to be a problem moving forward as Canada’s welfare state pushes for more PRICE CONTROLS.
With that said, Alberta can anticipate that the Bank of Canada will attempt to save the Loonie from forex market debasement, which equates to the potential for Albertans to get more value out of the Loonie than the rest of Canada.
Quebec already has a lot of price control mechanisms in place that only work because of how smart POLITICALLY they’ve been, but if Quebec were an independent nation with all of its current entitlements, nobody in their right mind would want to hoard their currency, yet, Quebecers behave as if they’re richest province in Canada.
Below is the Trudeau popularity tracker by Angus Reid; if the data does not show up below, you can click the link provided or search for “Trudeau popularity in Google”.
Approve/Disapprove of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau | angusreid.org
Albertans have strangely found themselves in the perfect time to take the bull by the horns and create their own pension plan. If Alberta focused on this, they’d actually destroy Trudeau while at the same time preventing themselves from the inevitable PENSION disasters that will be coming to Canada.
If Austerity is not considered by Canadians in the not so distant future, Canada is in for a serious economic disaster.
Interesting times ahead!