The two promises made by Harper:
1. That non-renewable natural resource revenues will be removed from the euqalization formula.
2. No province will be adversely affected by changes to equalization.
They are 2 different items and we need him to live up to both.
The reason we need this - is because the deal Danny and Loyola S. signed is flawed.
Further it is important for us to have mining revenues removed from the formula.
Here's how Sue's Blog described it in February:
Let's not even quote agreements that were used to develop applicable law.
Let's look at the legislation itself.
The title of the legislation relative to the changes in the Accord is:
1. This Act may be cited as the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador Additional Fiscal Equalization Offset Payments Act.
19. The Minister shall make a payment to the Province in the amount of $2 billion to allow the Province to reduce its outstanding debt.
22. The additional fiscal equalization offset payment that shall be made to the Province for a fiscal year corresponds to the amount determined by the Minister in accordance with the formula
(A - B) - C
where
A is the fiscal equalization payment that may be made to the Province for the fiscal year under the equalization formula in effect at that time, calculated as if the Province did not have any offshore revenue or petroleum production;
B is the fiscal equalization payment to the Province for that fiscal year under the equalization formula in effect at that time; and
C is the fiscal equalization offset payment for that fiscal year.
I have highlighted the words I would like to discuss.
The first area - is what the Province received the 2 billion dollar advance payment for - remember all the gab and to and fro about what we should spend the money on? Can you read what the law says? I wonder why the Premier allowed himself to be dictated to by Ottawa? They told us what we could use the money for and we agreed - that's what gets me all the weasel words about what we can spend the 2 billion on.
The second and third highlighted areas deal with what Sue's Blog mentioned in the last post. We signed an agreement which subjected our future to whatever Ottawa decided to do with equalization at any time. Don't feed me garbage Williams - tell me why you did it! Or should I expect that you "one of the best lawyers in Canada" the open-line cheerleaders called you today - missed the obvious? No - more like if you did not agree to that little stipulation that screws us - you could not have floated down the escalator screaming "we got it - we got it".
The Premier believes the people of Newfoundland and Labrador - including the media - are stupid. Keep it up Billy - you're on a roll or role whatever fits! Probably both. When you created Frankenstein - did you forget how the story ended?
For those of you who would like to review the entire legislation CLICK HERE
14 comments:
What should the deal have said?
Equalization formula in effect at the time of this signing - not at that time...
But if Newfoundland didn't qualify for Equalization under the formula used at the time of signing, wouldn't we lose out?
It did.
"It did" what? I don't get what you mean.
If we locked ourselves into a formula that meant we wouldn't get Equalization using the same formula but with the money say this year or next or 10 years from now, wouldn't we lose out at that point?
If the Equalization formula in the future added more money than the one when we signed, wouldn't we lose out then?
Adding more money to what?
There are three seperate and distinct agreements:
Atlantic Accord
Additional Agreement &
Equalization...
Equalization in independent of the Accord and the Additional Agreement - the Accord is independent of the Additional Agreement but dependent on Equalization and the Additional Agreement is dependent on both...
You still didn't explain what your statement "it did" meant.
By locking into the Equalization formula in whatever year the deal was signed, you could be giving up a change in the future that would make Equalization worth more.
What about if we locked into the formula in 2005 and then we didn't qualify for Equalization under that formula. But in the formula used at the future time we would have, then we'd losing money again.
I hope this is a genuine discourse - you cannot improve on a benefit which removes 100% of the revenue from the formula. The only way is down - there's no up available for the additional agreement.
Since you didn't answer my last comment does that mean you can't?
No it does not - what it means is I am busy and am not employed by anonymous to answer on demand - that's what your pay your politicians for. It means that after a while of continued questions which require that either you use your time to read my archives to find the answer - or I spend significant volunteer effort to answer an anonymous poster.
This is not a commercial blog - I do not make money doing it - and I am not retired - the arrogance you demonstrate by demanding my immediate attention tells me you are not being altogether genuine.
Identify yourself and we can have a public debate on this issue - where all readers get the benefit of knowing who you are and your motivation.
Anonymous posts from people who are providing input and opinion are very welcome - and questions from readers are as well.
Your demand on my time is unreasonable - I do not work for you.
The last question you posed will be answered when my time permits. Meanwhile you can review the mathematical possibilities and review the political possibilities and I am sure you will reach the answer to your own question.
On the answer to your question:
Here's the deal - Danny's wording assumes that changes to equalization would improve the province's circumstances between 04 - 10 - that is to say that the feds regardless of who won the minority would negotiate the 07-11 deal that would lower the threshold to receive. My wording represents a political view that we could be subject to significant losses with a negative change to threshold or resource revenue inclusion.
The best wording would say "the greater of" at the time of this signing or at the time.
Mathematically what you propose is possible but not politically viable - my assumption is also based on mathematically possible and politcally likely.
Please look to my next post on this issue as I explain how Danny is fighting the wrong battle in order to protect his mistake from being discovered by the media or the general public.
This may well be our biggest loss.
this is not the original anonymous but I have to say that person's posts helped clear some fog for me on this issue. I didn't think of that perspective before...
But my question is did Nova Scotia agree to this too and the possible pitfalls as you have outlined? It does say the Nova Scotia and NL agreement. I haven't heard much from that province on this.
I have heard nothing from Nova Scotia on this either. I do believe it is the same - the legislation is. The reason I suspect you are not hearing boo from NS publicly is that the economic impact to NS versus NL is significantly less and the changes to the formula may in the end benefit them in the overall.
NS does not support the removal of non-renewable natural resource revenues from the formula as they are not as wealthy in these resources as we are - therefore the removal is negative to their equation.
Saskatchewan - on the other hand - being similar in it's wealth of oil gas and potash and other minerals is similar to NL. That is why we have a friend in Premier Calvert - at least for now - because if Calvert can cut a side deal with Harper (they have more Conservative MP's and are from the Prairies) he may jump the ship in quick order - as Ontario has already done. Please look at the next post (about i/2 hour from now) for more details.
On your last comment, Sue, there have been any of a number of things written lately that show the impact of the changes on the provinces.
Go read the O'brien report. Heck go read stuff written about Harper's proposal that you support.
Newfoundland loses money under both.
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