A House Divided

I know I said at the outset that this blog would be about 'local' politics/politicians but the Federal government is showing that it is just as "loopy" as any of our Vancouver Island/British Columbia fare. When Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, ordered the Canadian flag to be taken down from all provincial government buildings because he wasn't "getting his way" with Ottawa over the "sharing" of resource revenues, I knew exactly how this was going to end. The already absurd concept of equalization payments have become nothing more than a mechanism for the federal government to bribe voters with other people's money.
As flawed as it was, the original concept of equalization payments was to see to it that none of our 'poor' relatives would have to live in squalor while their 'richer' cousins lived in opulence - the Feds call this the "have not" and "have" provinces. The way it was supposed to work was that provinces that had their own 'means' would look after themselves plus send money to Ottawa to provide help to those provinces which were "down on their luck". Much like the welfare system, if a "have not" province later found itself with improving fortunes, then their need for assistance would decrease and the equalization payments would be reduced proportionately.
Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have, in recent times, found themselves with substantial quantities of oil and natural gas off of their coastlines, resulting in a windfall of royalties to their treasuries and jobs for their citizens. However, they do not want to admit that, as a result, they are now in a better financial position, and therefore, do not need as much help from Ottawa. They want to be able to keep their resource revenue AND maintain the equalization payments at the same level as before ("have their cake and eat it too"). The Federal government, on behalf of all of the taxpayers of Canada, have recently accepted this preposterous notion and there must be dancing in the streets in St. John's and Halifax.
It used to be that the only province which regularly and routinely received special treatment from Ottawa was Quebec, which was galling enough, but this latest capitulation on the Federal government's part has added two more potential beneficiaries to that list. It must stick in the craw of many Canadians to have a 'father' in Ottawa who treats its 'children' so inequitably.