The provincial government has officially filed its court challenge of the federal equalization program.
The statement of claim was filed in Supreme Court last Friday.
The statement of claim questions the constitutionality of the program, and argues that it does not achieve its purpose.
The province claims the current program unfairly penalizes the province by not transferring funds to ensure public services are reasonably comparable to other provinces.
Specifically, the court action calls the program unconstitutional based on four elements: that it doesn’t include the cost of providing public services when calculating equalization payments, the fiscal capacity cap, the gross domestic product growth ceiling, and what they say is the inequitable distribution of excess equalization program funding.