Canada

I dont agree with calling a quarter of our population "dead weight". Quebec has the highest provincial taxes in Canada, and weren't so fortunate as to have their lines on the map surround a fuck tonne of O&G. One of the political topics most QC premieres have had in their platform since at least 2017, arguably earlier, has been to eliminate their reliance on equalization. They're not just sitting there doing nothing. Their real GDP has been in line with the rest of Canada with a 2.2% growth year-on-year, and were ahead of the national average by 0.1% at the beginning of 2025.

Alberta's in a deficit because their provincial taxes are way below the national average. They whine about not getting hand outs when they have the ability to be self-sufficient right in front of them. They refuse to invest in diversifying their economy, so everything hinges on pipelines that require billions of federal dollars (hand out?) across multiple parliaments because it won't be completed in ~4 years, coordinating across multiple provinces, and multiple premieres in those provinces; who can't cooperate with each other if their lives depended on it, working with indigenous communities to ensure they are heard and respected with regards to their land (spoiler, they generally aren't by the O&G industry). In the end, that crude would not be going to Europe. It would be going to California and Asia. So we're back to Trump's BS for a good portion of any of that actually benefiting. If this is so important to AB and BC, maybe those gov'ts need to put on their big person pants, increase their provincial taxes, and take some initiative on their own instead of waiting for daddy Carney to do it for them. Federal gov't is much more likely to help if the provinces can present the project proposal showing they won't be throwing billions into the void.