Show Canada our bottom line, Premier Notley

Talking tough is good. Showing people the money is better. Much better.

Presenting the nation’s balance sheet in digestible bits to the rest of the country is what Premier Rachel Notley should do if she really wants people to “mark” her words and to gain some social licence to have pipelines built that benefit everyone in this country.

The economic numbers, after all, tell a compelling story about how desperately this country needs Alberta and the energy industry that has done so much to fuel economic and social health and growth from sea to sea to sea.

Oddly, Alberta Finance no longer publishes a document called Fiscal Spotlight that shows Alberta’s net contribution to Canada. Statistics Canada, however, still does. In short, there are only four provinces that are net contributors to Canada’s bottom line — B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

On a per-capita basis, however, Alberta is boss as the largest monetary contributor to Confederation — by far. How far? More than 500 per cent far. None of the other three contributing provinces even come close.

In 2015, the last year that economic figures are available, Albertans — through mostly income taxes, corporate taxes and the GST — sent $47.925 billion to Ottawa. The feds, through health transfers and CPP payments, etc., returned just $24.819 billion to Albertans, meaning the rest of Canada kept $23.106 billion.

That means every single man, woman and child in Alberta contributed a whopping $5,501 each into federal government coffers to pay for things like the health care of our compatriots, employment insurance, federally funded roads and Justin Trudeau’s re-election largesse in the other six provinces, which are net recipients of equalization.

British Columbians were the next biggest per-capita contributors to Confederation in 2015. That province’s citizens and corporations sent $35.807 billion to the federal government in personal and corporate taxes and received back $30.962 billion in transfers, leaving the feds with $4.845 billion, or $1,030 for every British Columbian.

So, if B.C. is a net contributor to Confederation, then B.C. Green party Leader Andrew Weaver and NDP Leader John Horgan (who plan to form a fragile coalition majority government) are right, they don’t need Alberta and Kinder Morgan’s federally approved Trans Mountain pipeline, right? Not by a long shot.

You only have to go back to 2010 to see that Alberta was the only net contributor to Canada’s balance sheet that year, and the year before, as well.

Weaver may be “sick and tired of being told that the 20th century economy is the economy of tomorrow,” but the fella still uses quite a lot of that 20th century stuff he complains so much about.

As for the so-called economy of tomorrow, if British Columbians relied on B.C.’s clean technology sector for sustenance, they would starve. According to the chief policy officer for the Business Council of B.C., Jock Finlayson, the value of B.C.’s entire clean technology sector equals the value of just one B.C. forestry company — Canfor.

Weaver can feed that to his fictional “unicorn in every backyard” and watch his 21st century economy mirage evaporate into the ozone.

No numbers are available for 2016 yet, and even though Alberta’s economy struggled, a spokesperson within Alberta Finance said this province is still the largest per capita net contributor to Confederation.

In 2015, every Ontarian contributed a net of $673 to federal coffers, and in Saskatchewan, it was $724.

Consider the following net benefits to each person in the following provinces: $7,356 in P.E.I., $6,939 in Nova Scotia, $5,957 in New Brunswick, $2,875 in Manitoba, $2,342 in Newfoundland and $1,896 for every man, woman and child in Quebec.

Perhaps if Quebecers knew this, they wouldn’t object so heavily to allowing the Energy East pipeline to be reversed and portions of it to be built, so that Alberta bitumen can flow into and be upgraded in Quebec refineries.

That way, Alberta oil would be filling their tanks and their government’s coffers, rather than Saudi oil drawing from their balance sheet and funding global terror.

So, mark my words, premier, the bottom line is, show Canada our bottom line.