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Date: 1867-03-03
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “The Local Subsidies”, The Montreal Herald (3 March, 1867)
Other formats: TBA

THE LOCAL SUBSIDIES.

(From the Globe)

We called attention, yesterday, to the very injurious changes that have been made on the Quebec scheme of Confederation by the gentlemen now in London. We showed that the maintenance and management of Penitentiaries—of Marine Hospitals—and of sea coast and inland Fisheries—which, under the Quebec scheme were specially assigned to the Provincial Governments and Legislatures, have been by the Imperial Act handed back to the exclusive control of the Federal authorities. We showed that the power committed to the local authorities by the Quebec scheme to make provision of all local works—for the local advancement for agriculture—and for the local promotion of immigration—has by the Imperial Act been placed in subjection to the action of the Federal Government and Parliament, who are clothed with supreme power over “all works and undertakings in all or any of the Provinces,” and over everything affecting Agriculture and Immigration. We pointed out that in the administration of these public services, the greatest abuses had arisen in past years—that it was with the express intention of putting an end to those abuses that these services were specially committed to the local legislatures—and that their reckless and unauthorized restoration to Federal control was calculated to entail in the future the same scandalous scenes of scrambling for local advantages, and of buying local popularity by local jobs, that have been witnessed in the past.

And while with one hand the Imperial Act has thus largely reduced the duties and consequently the expenditure of the local governments—with the other it has not only maintained the money grants awarded the local governments to meet these very expenditures, but largely increased them. Here, then, we have the whole history of these local subsidies. There appears to have been a hard fight over them in the Conference—one party contending for the just and economical plan that all local expenditures should be defrayed from local taxation, and another insisting that the partial and wasteful plan of doles from the Federal chest, collected from indirect taxation, should be continued. The contest ended in the assignment to each of the Local Governments of an annual amount sufficient to defray every local expenditure—and the rate agreed upon of eighty cents per head of their respective populations, was accepted by the Delegates of all the Provinces as a final settlement of the question. And this settlement, and nothing else, was what the Canadian Parliament endorsed.

Now let us see what the gentlemen in London have done. They have broken up the bargain that was made at the Quebec Conference. They have transferred to the Federal Government heavy annual expenditures, that by the Quebec scheme were included in the services for which the local subsidies were granted. They have, notwithstanding the reduction of liability, maintained the full allowance to each of the Provinces of eighty cents per head. They have continued the special grant of $63,000 a-year to New Brunswick for ten years. They have given to New Brunswick when her population reaches 400,000 a second special allowance of $118,365 per annum for all time to come;—and they have given to Nova Scotia, when her population reaches 400,000, a similar allowance of $69,143 per annum for all time to come;—but not one shilling have they given to either Ontario or Quebec as an offset to these grants! And finally they have added to the local subsidies, for all time to come, the sum of $260,000 per annum, and distributed it, not according to population, either in 1861 or now, but on some theory of injustice invoked for the occasion. Of this $230,000 New Brunswick is to receive $50,000 or 20 cents per head. Nova Scotia is to receive $60,000 or 18 cents per head. Lower Canada is $70,000 or 6 cents per head, and Upper Canada $80,000 or 5 cents per head.

The local subsidies as fixed by the Quebec scheme were based on the census of 1861 and were, therefore, as follows:—

Upper Canada, pop. 1,396,091 $1,116,873

Lower Canada, ” 1,111,566 889,253

Nova Scotia, ” 330,857 264,686

New Brunswick, ” 252,047 201,638

Total annual grant…… $2,472,450

and a special grant for ten years of $63,000 per annum to New Brunswick.

The annual local subsidies as fixed by the Imperial Act for all time to come are as follows:—

Upper Canada…. $1,116,873

Do new …. 80,000

___________________ 1,196,873

Lower Canada…. 889,253

Do new …. 70,000

___________________ 959,253

Nova Scotia …. 264,686

Do. special 69,143

Do. new.. 60,000

___________________ 393,829

New Brunswick.. 201,638

Do. special 118,365

Do. new.. 50,000

___________________ 390,003

$2,919,958

—and a special grant for ten years of $63,000 per annum to New Brunswick.

Now, mark the justice of this precious arrangement. The Quebec scheme gave precisely eighty cents per head to each Province according to its population in 1861—and (leaving out in both cases the special ten-year grant to New Brunswick) here is what our wiseacres in London have changed the arrangement to:—

To Upper Canada, 85¼ cents per head.

To Lower Canada, 86¼ cents per head.

To Nova Scotia, 1.19 cents per head!

To New Brunswick, 1.47 cents per head!!

And let it not be forgotten that the Quebec scheme was framed in 1864, shortly after the census returns of 1861 had been printed, and therefore took that census as the basis of the arrangement. But nearly three years have passed away since then and the relative numbers of the several Provinces are greatly altered. According to the present estimated population of the several Provinces, the annual subsidies are to be distributed by the Imperial Act in the following most unjust fashion:—

The thing is so preposterously unjust that we are amazed how any one could have had the audacity to propose it, much less the folly to concede it. Only think of it! The burden thrown by these gentlemen in London on the Federal Exchequer—over and above what was settled in Quebec to be amply sufficient for all local purposes—is the enormous sum of $147,508 A-YEAR—or the annual interest on NINE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!