Canada’s equalization program may not be operating as intended, according to a newly released study that found at least one province with a higher GDP per capita received equalization payments in 15 of the past 25 years, while less affluent provinces did not.
“More often than not, over the past few decades, there have been provinces that have received equalization even though they had a higher living standard than provinces that received none,” Fraser Institute director of Alberta Policy Tegan Hill said in a press release.
“If equalization worked as intended, there should be a fairly consistent relationship between GDP per person levels—a general measure of living standards—and equalization payments per person, yet there are discrepancies in all but three years of analysis from 1981 and 2024.”…