TORONTO - A poll showing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives will pay a stiff price in a future election if Ontario falls into have-not status and qualifies for equalization payments isn't surprising, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.
The Canadian Press-Harris/Decima poll found that Ontario residents blame the poor economy on both the federal and provincial governments, but they feel Ottawa is the bigger culprit.
"Ontarians know (the provincial legislature) doesn't manage the value of the dollar, the price of oil or the health of the American economy," McGuinty said Wednesday. "Where the (federal government) can be helpful to Ontario, in a direct way, is to let us keep a bit more of our own money."
McGuinty, who has been engaged in a bitter and sometimes nasty battle with federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over how to deal with the slumping economy, said the possibility that Ontario could qualify for equalization payments is proof that Canada's fiscal arrangements are unfair.
"Every time provinces with oil and gas experience greater wealth, Ontario's contribution to the federation for redistribution to the so-called have-not provinces goes up as well," he said. "That's how faulty the existing system of redistribution of wealth in this country is today."
Ontario can no longer afford to send Ottawa over $20 billion more each year than it gets back in federal services and transfers, especially with the province's manufacturing and forestry sectors suffering because of the slowdown in the U.S. economy, McGuinty said.
The Harris/Decima survey found that 62 per cent of Ontarians believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is not doing enough to help the province from falling into have-not status, whereas only 50 per cent say the same thing about McGuinty.
Even nationally, more Canadians (34 per cent of those outside Ontario) are more likely to blame the federal government than the provincial government (27 per cent) for Ontario's woes.
Pollster Bruce Anderson of Harris/Decima called the high number of Ontario residents dissatisfied with the Harper government's record on the economy a wake-up call for the Conservatives, who would need to do well in Ontario to have a chance at winning a majority government.
The telephone survey of 1,000 was conducted from May 1 to May 4 and is considered accurate plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For Ontario, the sampling is considered accurate plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.
The war of words over the economy between Ottawa and Queen's Park was ignited by Flaherty's repeated rebuke that McGuinty's high business tax policies are holding back the province, while Ontario says it can't even consider more corporate tax cuts unless it gets a new fiscal deal with the feds.
The two sides were at it again last week after the TD Bank reported that Ontario could qualify for equalization payments as a have-not province by 2010. The poll suggests that the federal strategy of pinning the blame on McGuinty is not working.