Quebec election & provincial finances

So, I'm living in Quebec in the midst of a provincial election. Let me sum it up (in my own cynical, biased way)...

- separation talk still dominates the election

- negative comments about separation are referred to as "scare tactics" (this reminds me of the US where negative comments on the war are referred to as "unpatriotic")

- students have the lowest tuition in Canada by far ($1600/yr vs. ~$4000/yr for the rest of the provinces - don't quote me on exact figures except for the $1600 figure)

- a lot of election talk is about how much money the province can get from the feds

- debt and deficit are hardly mentioned (instead see above RE: separation talk)

- seems Quebec demographics are the worst in Canada in that it has (or soon will) have the most number of old folks relative to the number of taxpayers (read skyrocketing health costs with the fewest number of taxpayers, relatively speaking, paying for the healthcare) - none the less, see above lack of discussion about the debt / deficit

Which brings me the following tables that I came upon and which got me thinking about this in the first place:



I mentioned this to a friend in San Francisco and he essentially told me I was being American. Here's my thoughts for the topic:

- In the long term, is there a limit as to how much one part of the country subsidizes another? I support / understand (?) some of the the socialistic / federalistic reasons for equalization payments, but how long is this sustainable?

- If one part of the country really has that low productivity (logistical reasons? such as no fishery?), do transfer payments just stop people from moving to where econmics suggests they should be living?

- Why are Manitoba's per capita subsidies so high relative to Saskatchewan? Is oil & gas really helping SK out that much?

- Ignoring per capita equalization payments, it's pretty funny that Quebec gets virtually half of the equalization or 5.5 billion dollars last year. I wonder how many separtists factor this into the separation equation? I assume this is essentially money from Alberta & Ontario? I'd think this would be called a "fear tactic", but given Quebec has the 2nd largest total debt and the largest provincial debt ratio with the exception of little old Newfoundland (where they're clearing drinking too much screech).

- How come these sorts of quite simple tables don't get shown more during such things as say campaign elections? Do people not want to see them? Are they not popular topics? Or maybe the people (Quebeckers? Canadians? Americans?) too stupid to understand them? Definitely Americans must fall into this latter category (or at least about 49 million of them, if I recall that number correctly) since they elected Bush not once, but twice!!