Cynics call provincial and federal support an arm of the supposed “welfare state.” What cynics do not understand is that many essential services, in which every citizen partakes, come from the same essential funding source.
These services in general include financial, educational, medical, infrastructure, and social program support.
These services ensure the smooth and ongoing operation of each province, city, agency, and essential benefit to which each Canadian citizen is entitled.
The list below is an explanation of these federal support sources, the general amounts of funding per Canadian province, and exactly how these funds are divided, disseminated, and applied.
- In the 2016-2017 fiscal year, $70.9 billion will be allocated to the provinces and territories by the Canadian federal government. Is it an increase of nearly 75% from the 2007-2008 fiscal year numbers ($47.1 billion).
- These funds apply to all provinces, territories, and other possessions of the nation of Canada. Foreign territories under protection of the Canadian Parliament are also included, though funding to them is very limited.
- The among of funding depends upon several factors. The primary part of the funding rubric is a combination of overall population of the province or territory and the population density. This rubric ensures the proper amount of funding is available to large urban centers that are heavily populated as well as rural areas where population is sparse but need is still high.
- There are four major types of funding, each of which are called transfer programs. These are called the Canadian Health Transfer (CHT), the Canadian Social Transfer (CST), and the Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF). Each of these transfers fulfill different financial needs, though some overlap in their duties.
- The Canadian Health Transfer is primarily employed to finance Canada’s public health care system, which ensures each citizen receives general practitioner care, medication, surgery, and specialist care.
- The Canadian Social Transfer helps to fund social assistance and social service programs, early childhood development and education, childcare services, and subsidization for post-secondary education (such as college, university, professional school, and trade school).
- Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing is an unconditional transfer of money designed to bring provinces and territories will less gross product and revenue to the level of more successful regions of Canada. TFF is deigned to bring poorer areas up to the same standard of living, social service, and prosperity as other areas of the nation, while keeping the level of taxation on this citizens comparable.
Each of these support programs are evaluated each fiscal year, and analyses are performed over 5- and 10-year periods to ensure their efficacy. Their goal is to bring a fair and equal level of prosperity to all Canadian citizens.