For the first time since the Government of Canada created the program in 1957, Newfoundland and Labrador does not qualify for Equalization payments from the federal government.
This is a goal of every administration since 1957, except for the current one which has repeatedly campaigned to find a way of extending Equalization payments to the provincial government indefinitely.
In 1982, Brian Peckford concluded his provincial election victory speech with words that embodied both the goal and the perceived ignominy of the hand-out: ""I am more convinced than I have any time in the past that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians speak [with] one voice when we all say one day the sun will shine and have-not will be no more."
Less than a decade later and facing economic circumstances not seen in the province since before Confederation, Clyde Wells said he longed for the day when the provincial government didn't receive a dollar of Equalization. In his remarks well pointed to self-respect - genuine self-respect - and to the sort of genuine self-determination that cannot come from the sort of the dependence of the provincial budget on federal transfers:
By doing this, and by having equalization cut this way, we are coming closer to looking after our own needs and we are coming closer to recovering some of the dignity and self-respect you lose when you depend on the federal government for 47 percent of the revenue [in the provincial budget].
I can't wait to see the day when we don't get a dollar.
Dominion Bond Rating Service recently noted the current provincial government's dependence on federal transfers as an area of concern.
Energy deals from Hibernia (begun under Peckford and completed under Wells) to Terra Nova and White Rose (negotiated under Tobin) and mineral deals like the Voisey's Bay agreement (negotiated under Roger Grimes) - savagely attacked by Danny Williams while in opposition - generated the revenues necessary to propel the province off Equalization.
Economists have forecast since 2003 that Newfoundland and Labrador would cease qualifying for Equalization within five years (i.e. by 2009/2010), based on revenues developed before October 2003 and long before anyone thought US$70 a barrel oil was anything more than the predictions of lunatics and amateurs.
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