Back to you, Myles

Myles Higgins of Portugal Cove had a most interesting letter in the Edmonton Journal earlier this summer:

History lesson
Edmonton Journal, June 29, 2007, p. A17

Re: "Leadership needed from Harper," by L. Ian Macdonald, Opinion, June 21.

I'm shocked that an Alberta paper would print such an ill- informed column. Macdonald contends that the Atlantic provinces should not expect to keep both their oil revenues and equalization payments.

Albertans would do well to remember that, in the '40s and '50s, Alberta also received federal equalization and, in order to build its economy, it was also allowed to retain its oil royalties while receiving equalization.

Myles Higgins
Portugal Cove, Nfld.

Ill-informed is as ill-informed does. The paper printed the following, somewhat better-informed retort — at least on the "Alberta got to keep its equalization" myth — early last month:

Helping hand
Edmonton Journal, July 4, 2007. p. A14

Re: "History lesson," by Myles Higgins, Letters, June 29.

I challenge Myles Higgins's assertion that Alberta received transfer payments in the 1940s and '50s while getting to keep our oil revenues. The transfer payment system was enacted in 1957 (see http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/economy/equalization/payments-in-detail.html)

Far from the federal government helping Alberta develop her oil and gas resources, the feds actually got in the way with the national energy program in the 1980s. Alberta doesn't owe the federal government a darn thing.

Rob Jurchuk,
Fort McMurray

Perhaps Myles can explain what it means that Alberta was "allowed to retain its oil royalties while receiving equalization", and, ideally, compare it to the equalization implications of Newfoundland's offshore oil and gas revenues.

Watch another cherished Newfoundland nationalist myth go >poof<.