Ontario transfers $1 billion a year to the Yukon for exactly the kind of Development you're talking about. It's growing and expanding just as the government wants it to.
"do not, technically, involve wealthy provinces making payments to poor provinces, although in practice this is what happens, via the federal treasury."
We can argue that it's a good thing the program works the way it does and I'd argue, for the most part, that's true [0]. But all the programs you listed and the eq. program are net transfers from rich (and less politically powerful [1]) to poorer provinces.
It's akin to when coastal Americans bemoan that fly over Americans get net transfer of wealth from them.
[0]having lived in many US states, I kinda like knowing that NL, or NB is taken care of when they're in the dumps
[1] Being a 905er myself, let's be honest here! Quebec, between separatism and as a battleground province, can throw a hissy fit and get whatever they want (and good for them! Hate the game, not the player.)
Provinces don't pay tax. People do. They're net transfers from rich people (regardless of where they live) to poorer provinces. It just so happens that Alberta has a high per-capita income these days (not always the case). That's not a bad problem to have.
Restricting competition by using FUD is nothing new to the Linux community, but seeing this being done at the govt level and people buying into this whole tribal mentality is astonishing. I have more issues with some monopolistic tendencies that companies like Google or Microsoft in the 90s had, especially with how Android is effectively becoming closed source through the Play Store and Services, yet you do not see that level of collective paranoia going on.
You should direct this question to China instead.