Newfoundland is also a contributor now.

Equalization is just as bad for recipient provinces as it is for the contributing provinces.  Harvard just came out with a study showing that economic stagnation often follows money from earmarks in the US.  Locally, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies shows the damage done to the Atlantic Provinces by equalization.  It doesn't look at Quebec, unfortunately, whose equalization funds are more than the total of all other provinces combined.