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The CHT includes a cash transfer and a tax point transfer. The total cash transfer is set in legislation and grows by 6% annually. The tax point transfer corresponds to 13.5 percentage points of personal income tax and 1 percentage point of corporate income tax.

Each province’s per capita CHT cash is calculated as a residual (i.e., the province’s per capita share of total CHT less its per capita tax point transfer).

CHT cash includes an equalizing component, since the per capita cash transfer is higher for provinces with relatively weak tax point transfers, and vice versa.

The equalization program is redistributing $15.4 billion in federal tax dollars this year to every province but British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland.

The formula is based on the Trudeau-era constitutional amendment requiring that Canadians get ``reasonably comparable levels of public services'' funded by ``reasonably comparable levels'' of provincial taxation.

But the report from Peter Gusen, former director of federal-provincial relations at the federal Department of Finance, said the current system is flawed because it considers only a province's ``fiscal capacity'' to raise revenues.That means factors that have a huge influence on funding services - like wage costs or the relative age of a population - aren't considered.

According to a new study released this month by the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation at the University of Toronto, no consideration is given to how much it costs to provide services in different provinces. It’s cheaper to hire a nurse in the Maritimes than in Alberta, yet that is never taken into account. A greater percentage of the population in Atlantic Canada is older and lives in remote communities than in Ontario, but the cost of providing public services is much higher in Ontario because of the cost of living.

Our equalization system is good at calculating how much a province should receive relative to its “fiscal capacity” — its ability to raise revenues from income, sales and corporate taxes — but fails to take into account at all each province’s “expenditure needs.” No consideration is given to how much it actually costs to provide basic public services.

The Mowat Centre study uncovers — albeit in polite academic-speak — the main fraud in equalization: Most of the provinces that receive it don’t truly need it. “Most of the provinces that qualify for payments under the existing equalization system due to their low fiscal capacity, pay less than average for the goods and services they must buy (P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Manitoba) … This lower need may offset, in whole or in part, the below average fiscal capacity that currently qualifies those same provinces for equalization.”

In 1977 both sides agreed to an incredibly complex formula, the essence of which was that federal funding for health care would increase annually at the rate of the nominal increase in the gross domestic product averaged over the previous three years.

the rate of inflation, add the rate real of economic growth – which, combined, equals nominal GDP

John Wright is CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information

The provinces are certainly not equal in their fiscal capacity. Indeed, if one looks at per capita own-source revenues, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan and Alberta are well above the provincial average as a result of their natural resource revenues. Meanwhile, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario are below the average while Manitoba and British Columbia are at about the average.

The provinces are also not equal in their rates of population growth, the rates at which their population is aging, the proportion of aboriginal or immigrant population, or the incidence of various diseases.

In 2011-12, Ottawa transferred about $58 billion in cash to the provincial and territorial governments. The three main provincial cash transfer programs are the Canada Health Transfer at $27 billion, the Canada Social Transfer (for child, post-secondary education and social programs) at about $12 billion and Equalization (funds for those provinces with a weaker fiscal capacity) at almost $15 billion.

The Globe and Mail Thu Aug 27 2015

kyakabuski@globeandmail.com The federal government will transfer $34-billion to the provinces for health care this year, an amount equal to about 23 per cent of provincial health budgets. That's up from barely 15 per cent in the late 1990s, and represents a 70-per-cent increase in federal cash in the past decade. When equalization is taken into account, Ottawa's share of health spending might even exceed 25 per cent, since most have-not provinces likely use some of the $17.3-billion they get in equalization to pay for hospitals, doctors, prescription drugs and other health-related expenditures. Equalization, after all, is meant to allow poorer provinces to offer comparable public services at comparable rates of taxation, with health care being the great equalizer among Canadians.

Yet, this is precisely what NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau are promising should one or the other become prime minister after Oct. 19. "If my party forms government, it will call a federalprovincial meeting to reach a long-term agreement on health care funding," Mr. Trudeau wrote last week in a letter to Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard. Mr. Mulcair promises an NDP government would "use any budget surplus" to restore the 6-per-cent escalator. "Money alone cannot solve the problems facing our health-care system. But without money, we won't solve a thing," he told the Canadian Medical Association in 2014.

Oct 20, 2015

CUPE has a proud history of championing equality - within our union, our workplaces and our communities. Through the equality history project, we’ve now traced our role in key human rights struggles over the years, in Canada and internationally.

Every year, women around the world celebrate (angrily) the day their average full-time full-year earnings have caught up to men's average full-time full-year earnings from the year before. This year in the United States that day fell on April 12. In Germany it was March 19. In Switzerland it was February 24. In Ontario? Equal Pay Day* comes on April 19.

o help us better understand gender pay gap dynamics in Ontario, Dr. Kendra Coulter at Brock University conducted a survey of retail workers, an already low-wage and feminized sector. Sheetal Rawal, a lawyer and pay equity expert, contributed analysis and context, and I helped out with some numbers. Our whole report can be found on Dr. Coulter's website, revolutionizingretail.org.

Equal Pay Day is calculated based on the difference in full-time earnings between men and women, but it turns out it is not just about wage equity, but also about "hours equity."

In the mid-election fog of March, Jim Flaherty appeared on CBC's The House and made a commitment he may yet live to regret.

"We need to negotiate with the provinces and say, 'How long an agreement do you want? A five-year agreement? A 10-year agreement? A two-year agreement?' ... We will keep it at 6% for whatever the duration of the agreement is," he said.

At first blush, it looks like the feds have given away the farm before they have even sat down with the provinces. But what Ottawa gives with one hand, it may take away with the other

The Economist Intelligence Unit recently lowered Canada’s growth projections for 2012 to 1.7 per cent, “to reflect the deteriorating external outlook.” The outlook includes a deepening recession in Europe that could drag down the United States, taking Canada with it.Growth of 1.7 per cent is not enough to lower unemployment or significantly increase government revenues, which is why the Tories will take an axe to every department in February, cutting them by 5 per cent or 10 per cent without exception.

The provinces can hardly expect Ottawa to boost transfers to them even as it slashes its own spending. They will have to fend for themselves.

The Prime Minister is no fan of equalization

Expenditure Need: Equalization’s Other Half is the first paper in a Mowat Centre series exploring options for reforming the Canadian transfer system.

It argues that the current approach to Equalization turns a blind eye to the differences in expenditures that provinces must make to provide comparable levels of public services.

The paper shows that incorporating these differences can make Equalization fairer and less costly. It also highlights Ontario’s unique position—the province has both higher than average expenditure needs and lower than average revenue raising capacity. The paper demonstrates that adopting an expenditure need based approach to equalization would come closer to fulfilling the federal government’s Constitutional obligation to ensure that provinces have the fiscal capacity to provide their residents with comparable levels of services at comparable levels of taxation.

Calgary Herald Wed Apr 22 2015

The Wildrose's guaranteed-wait-timesor-go-elsewhere solution is no solution at all. In fact, it's just a thinly disguised ideological sop to two-tier medicine that promotes speeded-up health care for the rich on the public dime, rather than equal access for all, regardless of income.

Few patients could afford to pay room and board for three months while convalescing, making this option available only to the wealthy. Heart bypass patients are usually cleared to fly after a six-week convalescence. Six-weeks room and board would be paid out of pocket. All patients would have to cover the cost if there was a difference between what Alberta pays and what the price tag is elsewhere. As for radiation, which involves a series of treatments that go on for weeks, does the Wildrose envision people flying back and forth to out-of-province clinics while paying hefty airfares out of their own pockets? Not to mention the added costs if a patient experiences complications after a procedure.

The total CHT entitlement is expected to reach $36.6 billion in 2008–2009, with the tax point transfer and the cash transfer amounting to $14.0 billion and $22.6 billion respectively. In order to qualify for the cash transfer, provinces must comply with conditions stipulated in the Canada Health Act.

The tax point transfer component of the CHT dates back to 1977 when the federal government agreed to reduce its personal and corporate tax rates by 13.5 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively, thereby allowing provincial governments to occupy that tax room

Because the tax point transfer represents a means of raising provincial own-source revenue and is worth more in some provinces than others, it is subject to equalization. (

women have been losing ground in their fight for equality

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women still only make 70% of what men make

The briefing notes prepared earlier this year for the federal intergovernmental affairs minister predict that "pressure is expected to build" as a 10-year federal funding program for medicare nears an end and there are increased calls from the public for a "national dialogue" on the public health-care system.

the internal documents conclude that while the federal-provincial Health Accord negotiated in 2004 delivered shorter wait times for some procedures, it "failed to deliver significant reforms" in other priority areas such as primary care, home care, and access to prescription drugs.

the federal government will move in the future to an "equal per capita allocation" of the medicare funds to provinces

Alberta is suggesting that the funding shortcomings of provinces such as Quebec and Ontario be addressed through the back door using the federal equalization fund. I’m not sure how that helps provinces such as Saskatchewan and B.C., which also lose under the new funding formula but don’t receive equalization payments.

The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today announced a major new investment in health care. The new investment in health care will see funding grow to record levels from $30 billion per year in 2013-14 to $38 billion per year in 2018-19, for a total investment of $178 billion in health care over the five-year period.

The Government also confirmed the Canada Social Transfer (CST) will continue to grow at its current rate of 3 per cent annually in 2014-15 and beyond, Equalization will continue to grow in line with gross domestic product, and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF) will continue to grow based on its current formula.

The CHT and CST will be reviewed again in 2024.

Women on the March until we are all free: Rally for Equality and Solidarity

In front of the NB Legislature, Fredericton, 12 noon, Friday, April 24, 2015

New Brunswick will join the International World March of Women 2015 in a global day of action on Friday, April 24, which marks the second anniversary of the horrific Bangladesh factory collapse that killed 1,135 workers. The focus of this year’s march is precarious work.

National Post Wed Mar 11 2015

In his article "Death by one-percenter" (March 3), Peter Shawn Taylor makes a very strange argument. He suggests that physicians and public health experts, charged with caring for the health of Canadians, should not concern themselves with the root causes of illness and stick to a narrow range of health interventions. Fortunately, Canadian health experts have a broader and more complete understanding of how and why people get sick. They aren't satisfied with simply pulling drowning kids out of the river; though this is obviously important, they also look upstream to ask why kids are falling in the river in the first place. Decades of studies have shown conclusively that income and its distribution, education, employment, housing, food security and the wider environment have far greater impact on health outcomes than health care. I see this borne out daily in the lives of patients whose life circumstances have limited their ability to enjoy full health.

Taylor belittles this well-established and supported concept of the social determinants of health as "impossibly broad." It's true that these upstream factors touch on all aspects of public policy. Our health is determined by political choices. If we want the best for Canadians, shouldn't our political choices be determined by health? There is a growing international movement, supported by the World Health Organization, toward "Health in all Policies," an approach that has been adopted by governments around the world. Here in Canada, Quebec has such a policy, and Newfoundland and Labrador is currently exploring this model. Taylor takes particular umbrage with an idea that has been expressed most clearly in the British Medical Journal: "The more equally wealth is distributed, the better the health of that society." There are three key ways in which wealth inequality can lead to worse health outcomes. The first, and most obvious, is poverty. In a less equal society, more people live in relative disadvantage, and are less able to afford safe housing and nutritious food or to access educational and economic opportunities. Their health suffers as a result, with people living in poverty often having life expectancies 20 or more years shorter than wealthier citizens. In my inner-city neighbourhood of Saskatoon, that manifests in rates of diabetes, heart disease, STIs, infant and overall mortality many times greater than the rest of the city.

Another budget shock -- the Nova Scotia deficit for the past year is approaching $700 million, a revelation followed by declarations that the new Liberal government's honeymoon is over. I don't actually remember a honeymoon -- just the usual numb anxiety while awaiting the needle -- but let's examine this continuing struggle with debt, deficits, a weak economy and young people leaving against a wider backdrop.