Editing Transfer payment (section)

===Canada===

In Canada, Federal-Provincial transfers usually refer to a system of payments from the federal government to the [[Provinces and territories of Canada|province]]s as part of Canada's "fiscal federalism" through explicit and implicit redistribution.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> These transfers are intended to assist provinces with less fiscal capacity than others in providing comparable public services in all regions, including health and education.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> Transfers include explicit programs such as [[equalization payments]], [[Canada Health Transfer]] (CHT) and the [[Canada Social Transfer]] (CST) (formerly the [[Canada Health and Social Transfer]]) and [[Territorial Formula Financing]]. There are also implicit transfers that result from federal taxation and spending decisions and policies.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/>

Canada's transfer payments originated in the [[British North America Act (1867)]]'s Sections 118 as provincial subsidies.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> By 1907, these payments were altered as new provinces joined the Dominion.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018">{{citation |first=Trevor |last=Tombe |date=nd |title=Final, Unalterable (and Up for Negotiation): Federal-Provincial Transfers in Canada |series=Working Papers 2018-13 |work=University of Calgary |access-date=December 10, 2018 |url=https://econ.ucalgary.ca/sites/econ.ucalgary.ca.manageprofile/files/unitis/publications/1-9016260/Tombe_2018_CTJ_-_Transfers_in_Canada.pdf}}</ref> In a 1957 arrangement, poorer provinces received annual payments: Prince Edward Island received $2.5 million and the three provinces, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick each received $7.5 million.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> These payments ended and were rolled into the 1967 equalization program intended to "enable each province to provide an adequate level of public services without resort to rates of taxation substantially higher than those of other provinces."<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/>

In Canada, transfers payments are contentious and equalization formulas are often revised.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> Implicit transfers through federal taxation, for example, are greater in higher income provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario and lower in provinces such as Manitoba, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces. Canada measures average fiscal capacity of each province which varies widely. Alberta is the highest at $12,577 per person and PEI is the lowest at $6,013 per person. In 2016 federal income tax in Alberta was more than $8,000 compared to less than $3,000 in PEI. All provinces pay the same federal tax rates.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/>

Economist Trevor Tombe wrote that by 2018, transfer payments had become "complex arrangements" that are much larger than the original subsidies and are "more equally distributed".<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/> By 2018, inter-provincial redistribution has decreased to less than 2% of Canada's GDP, its lowest in 60 years. In the early 1980s it was 3.5%.<ref name="ucalgary_Tombe_2018"/>