Hub Headlines features audio versions of the best commentaries and analysis published daily in The Hub. Enjoy listening to original and provocative takes on the issues that matter while you are on the go. 0:21 - Alberta is right to want a better deal, by Sean Speer 7:06 - Canadian dollar reaches 14-month low, near 70 cents to the U.S. dollar—main driver is diverging interest rates, not CUSMA, by Graeme Gordon This program is narrated by automated voices. To get full-length editions of popular Hub podcasts and other great perks, subscribe to the Hub for only $2 a week: https://thehub.ca/join/hero/ Subscribe to The Hub&#x27;s podcast feed to get all our best content: https://tinyurl.com/3a7zpd7e (Apple) https://tinyurl.com/y8akmfn7 (Spotify)x Watch The Hub on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHubCanada The Hub on X: https://x.com/thehubcanada?lang=en CREDITS: Elia Gross – Producer &amp; Editor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alberta is right to want a better deal

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Welcome to Hub Headlines. Today's program features the best commentary and analysis published in the Hub for July 9th. Up first is Sean Spear, writing on why Alberta is right to want a better deal from Canada's equalization system. Ken Buesenkul, Jared Wesley, Trevor Tome, and Peggy Garrity have written what's probably the strongest available defense of Canada's equalization system

from an Alberta vantage point. Their essay deserves engagement because its best arguments are genuinely good ones. It also deserves friendly pushback, though, because Canada's system of fiscal federalism and its model of federalism more generally warrant a harder look. Two of their claims are particularly compelling. The first is that equalization enables decentralization, a federation whose have-less members can fund comparable services from unconditional transfers,

is one where Ottawa doesn't need to run those services itself. American sociologist Joshua McCabe has gone as far as arguing that American conservatives should want a Canadian-style equalization grant precisely because Washington's sprawling patchwork of conditional grants gives it far more leverage over state policy than a single, transparent, no-strings transfer would. The second follows from the first. Eliminating equalization wouldn't eliminate the political pressures behind it.

Instead, it would simply reemerge as backdoor equalization, including targeted programs, conditional transfers, and boutique federal spending in half-less provinces. A 2013 comparative study of Canada, the United States, and Australia found as much. The Cato Institute's Chris Edwards, who contributed the American chapter, concluded that the Canadian approach is superior and certainly more transparent than the U.S. approach.

Granting all that, there are at least three reasons for a more critical posture toward the whole set of fiscal arrangements and toward the proposition that Alberta's net contribution to Confederation is self-evidently worth it. The first is constitutional.

Alberta is right to want a better deal

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Alberta is right to want a better deal

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.