Well, we could look at it in the sense of CPP, Where all of the provinces signed on with the understanding of a mutual benefit, and also an understanding of not knowing the future, or whether the payout would be evenly spread across provinces. Unfortunately, Ms. “I get mine first” Smith wants to pull Alberta out of the CPP, so I’m not sure now would be the time to try for a new mutual benefit project. The provinces have become much more adversarial than they were 100 years ago, minus QC, who’s always had a certain “we do what we want, dégage, maudit anglophones!” attitude (said lovingly with a stepmother from QC, and family still there).
That said, when Ms. Marlaina Smith and her UCP flunkies tried to pull financial coverage for people on insulin pumps, enough people became outraged so quickly that the UCP changed directions almost immediately. So if we can get it into people’s hands, and make it worthwhile for them, people might self-regulate.
My larger concern for me, is the article mentions the big 3 undermining, then buying out India’s insulin manufacturing company. India has a notably larger economy, and population, than Canada. I’m skeptical we’d be able to manufacture insulin at a scale where it would be enough to compete – not in a profit sense, but in the sense of it being financialy wise for the average person to switch and thereby sustain the manufacturing costs. I know the big 3 are focusing on drugs with larger profit potential, and I also know those CEOs have a narcissistic drive to not let anyone take any of “their” money until they’ve completely discarded that endeavour. I don’t know how we’d be able to protect from their shenanigans.
I dont agree with calling a quarter of our population “dead weight”. Quebec has the highest provincial taxes in Canada, and weren’t so fortunate as to have their lines on the map surround a fuck tonne of O&G. One of the political topics most QC premieres have had in their platform since at least 2017, arguably earlier, has been to eliminate their reliance on equalization. They’re not just sitting there doing nothing. Their real GDP has been in line with the rest of Canada with a 2.2% growth year-on-year, and were ahead of the national average by 0.1% at the beginning of 2025.
Alberta’s in a deficit because their provincial taxes are way below the national average. They whine about not getting hand outs when they have the ability to be self-sufficient right in front of them. They refuse to invest in diversifying their economy, so everything hinges on pipelines that require billions of federal dollars (hand out?) across multiple parliaments because it won’t be completed in ~4 years, coordinating across multiple provinces, and multiple premieres in those provinces; who can’t cooperate with each other if their lives depended on it, working with indigenous communities to ensure they are heard and respected with regards to their land (spoiler, they generally aren’t by the O&G industry). In the end, that crude would not be going to Europe. It would be going to California and Asia. So we’re back to Trump’s BS for a good portion of any of that actually benefiting. If this is so important to AB and BC, maybe those gov’ts need to put on their big person pants, increase their provincial taxes, and take some initiative on their own instead of waiting for daddy Carney to do it for them. Federal gov’t is much more likely to help if the provinces can present the project proposal showing they won’t be throwing billions into the void.