Archived - Harper Government Providing Unprecedented Support to Provinces and Territories for Health Care, Education Canadians Rely On

December 15, 2014 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Finance

Finance Minister Joe Oliver has presented his provincial and territorial counterparts with details on 2015–16 transfer amounts. Every province and territory will benefit from higher transfers next year. Major federal transfers to provinces and territories will total $67.9 billion in 2015–16, an increase of more than $3 billion from the current year, and almost 63% since 2005–06.

• There are four main annual federal transfer programs: the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), the Canada Social Transfer (CST), Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF).
  • The CHT is the largest major annual transfer to provinces and territories. It provides long-term, predictable funding for health care.
  • The CST is an annual federal transfer to the provinces and territories in support of post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, and early childhood development, early learning and child care.
  • Equalization is the Government of Canada’s transfer program for addressing fiscal disparities among provinces. Equalization payments are provided on an unconditional basis to enable less prosperous provincial governments to provide their residents with public services that are reasonably comparable to those in other provinces, at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.
  • TFF is an annual unconditional transfer from the Government of Canada to the three territorial governments to enable them to provide their residents with a range of public services comparable to those offered by provincial governments, at comparable levels of taxation.