Helene Chalifour-Sherrer, Liberal candidate in the Quebec riding of Louis-Hebert pointed out in an interview that Quebec is not the "milking cow", and is in fact quite dependent on federal transfer payments. She apparently called Quebec "a poor province". [via Bourque]
The Bloc Quebecois immediately pounced on these comments claiming that if Quebec was a sovereign country it wouldn't be dependent on Ottawa.
Ms. Chalifour-Sherrer has apologised for the remarks.
Unless I am missing something, she has merely pointed out what is patently obvious: Quebec receives more in Equalization (in absolute dollars) than any other province by quite a wide margin. In 2004/05, Quebec received some $3.6 billion in Equalization payments, which is about as much as received by Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick combined.
Quebec received about 5.5 times the amount of Equalization received by Newfoundland and Labrador.
I didn't get the sense in the reported comments that she thought this was a good thing.
What is even more remarkable is the crap from le chef des Blocheads Gilles Duceppe who claimed in the Globe and Mail that an independent Quebec would have all the money it needed.
Ok.
So, then perhaps M. Duceppe would care to explain to Canadians why the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois vision of an "independent" Quebec calls for continued transfer payments from Canada after "independence".
The last time a clear question was posed to Quebeckers, the rejected M. Duceppe's view of an "independent" Quebec.
So did Canadians as a whole.
Perhaps M. Duceppe should apologise for being full of crap.
