Equalization is complex subject. It's tedious and it is hard to express simply.
But the Calvert/Williams position is actually easy to understand and describe.
For the purposes of illustration, let's use the cbc.ca story found on the /nl site. Overall, it's a pretty good summary of yesterday's news from Saskatchewan.
Part way through there's this sentence:
One of their concerns is that a new equalization formula would factor non-renewable resources into the calculations.That's not accurate.
Calvert and Williams are concerned the Prime Minister will not keep his election promise to exclude 100% of non-renewable resource revenues from Equalization.
What cbc.ca and others are running makes you think the revenues are out now and Harper is going to put them all in. He doesn't have to: they already are included 100%. The O'Brien panel recommends including half of all resource revenues.
See the difference?
It's a pretty big one, actually.
And for Equalization, it's remarkably simply to state.
