Finance committee That is a very good point, and it may well be the decision the province makes. For 2008-09 it may well be that they forgo some benefits under the current recommendations with the new program, but going forward it may well be that they're much better off staying within the fixed f
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee It is a worthwhile discussion, and I think it needs further study.
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee First of all, let me say I don't have a different formula. I'm not here advocating anything. All I want to say is that Bill C-52 goes well beyond O'Brien. The O'Brien formula is part of it, but there are three formulas at work in the proposals in clause 80 of Bill C-52. O'Brien d
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee I'm not in the business of making recommendations to the province. Let me just make the point that in a situation where you have wide disparities of natural resource revenues across provinces, there will always be provinces that are have and provinces that are have not.
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee That's exactly the kind of analysis that I've been undertaking for Nova Scotia, that my colleague, Dr. Locke, at Memorial has been undertaking for Newfoundland and Labrador. Rumours are just rumours, so I don't want to comment on them. I doubt very much that the option will be th
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee Well, the number that has appeared in the media is approximately $1 billion—some $950 million to be exact, based on the data I'm using. What that number represents is the impact of the fiscal capacity cap on Nova Scotia over the period effectively between now and 2013-14. What
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee Yes, we have been able to work these things through. Indeed, the billion-dollar estimate takes it right through until 2019-20.
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee That's correct. We've not incorporated the possibility of Deep Panuke coming on stream, but should it come on stream in the timeframe involved, the revenue flow to the province would be relatively small, given the way royalty arrangements work. So it should not dramatically affec
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Prof. Paul Hobson
Finance committee Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let met briefly introduce myself. I've been a professor of economics for 29 years. For 25 of those years, I have studied equalization and associated aspects of federal-provincial fiscal relations. I have been working on this particular file ever since the b
May 29th, 2007Committee meeting
Professor Paul Hobson