The issue is whether Ontario should have a different tax system than the
             federal government of Canada. The provinces already have different ways of
             calculating taxes from the federal government and from one another.
             Verburg (1998) noted five years ago that the taxpayers in Ontario and
             Alberta were benefiting form an effort by each to have the lowest taxes in
             Canada. Still, Verburg also noted that the tax cuts to that time were not
             very substantial even as each province was trying to become the most
             attractive province in which to do business for the North American economy.
             Alberta long had the lowest personal income-tax rate in Canada, but the
             Ontario government set out undercut Alberta by half a percentage point by
             lowering its basic personal income-tax rate to 45% of the basic federal
             tax. Alberta answered this soon after by cutting its basic rate to 44%, at
             which time Ontario countered with 40.5%. Verburg cheered them on, stating
             that "the two provinces are chipping away at Canada's burdensome tax
             Verburg further noted that Ottawa was not responding with the same
             On a recent swing through Alberta, federal Finance Minister Paul
             Martin said giving Canadians a break on their income tax is "a major
             priority" for the 1999 federal budget, when a multibillion-dollar
             budget surplus is expected. But, so far, there has been no firm
             commitment to return those extra dollars to the people who earned them
             The Ontario income tax system changed how it calculates the tax
             beginning in 2002 so that it now levies its personal income tax as a
             parentage of taxable income rather than as a percentage of basic federal
             tax. This system is known as tax-on-income (TONI) system, and it is used
             to allow Ontario to set its own tax brackets and tax rates independently of
             the federal system, and so provides the Province with direct control over
             many features of the ...