Conrad Black: Reform of Canada’s Equalization Program Is Sorely Needed

Commentary Once again, the equalization program is being challenged by a number of provinces that feel themselves to be short-changed by it. This was always a program that was going to invite controversy and set individual provinces against each other. It was set up initially by the government of Louis St. Laurent in 1955 and 1956 as a response to Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis’s imposition of a provincial income tax. For decades, Duplessis had pointed out in vain that under the British North America Act, whose provisions in this respect have been carried forward into the present Canadian Constitution, direct taxes were a concurrent jurisdiction of the federal and provincial governments. The provinces were responsible for education, welfare policy, property, and civil rights, though a constitutional amendment during the war allocated the responsibility to create and fund a system of unemployment insurance to the federal government....