Equalization. It’s a big word. It’s a word that you may hear bandied about by politicians, journalists and other talking heads on radio and TV . But what does it mean to you and me? What does it mean to the average citizen in Saskatchewan? How is it relevant to people in their day to day life?

Simply put, equalization is the money that the national government gives to the poorer provinces to help pay for services like hospitals, schools, agriculture programs etc. Ottawa gives money to the poorer provinces so that people all across the country can have similar levels of government services for their tax dollar.

It sounds simple enough, but how do you figure out which province is the poorest? What do you do to measure the wealth of the provinces? Since equalization is calculated by politicians, you might wonder if funny math is used in the calculations. Could some provinces get cheated by this system?

Consider our home province. In Saskatchewan, per capita income is roughly $25,000/person. The national average is roughly $30,000/person. Well, you might think Saskatchewan must be getting a fair bit of money through equalization. We are definitely poorer than other provinces.

The government in Ottawa says No, Saskatchewan is rich. The feds say that Saskatchewan has oil and gas, potash and uranium–and the money from these natural resources makes the provinces rich. The federal government forgets that these resources are already counted once in our per capita income of $25,000/person. Ottawa is using funny math: They are counting our natural resources twice. Saskatchewan is getting short changed.

As your Member of Parliament, it’s my job to stand up for you and to stand up for Saskatchewan. That is why, in the last election, I committed to have this double counting stopped. Saskatchewan must receive a fair deal. Recently, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia struck a deal with Ottawa to end the double counting of their natural resources. Saskatchewan only wants what these two provinces have received.

This issue has united Saskatchewan politicians. Recently the 13 Saskatchewan Conservative MPs invited Premier Calvert to support us on this issue at a meeting in Regina. We were joined by Sask. Party Leader Brad Wall and provincial Liberal Leader David Karwacki, forming a united front to stand up for Saskatchewan. We all put Saskatchewan first. We all promised to work to change Ottawa’s unfairness towards Saskatchewan.

I’m Brad Trost, your member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.