Super Sized Fiscal Federalism

In 2012/13, the federal government's total transfers to the provinces amounted to $60.1 billion, or $1,725 per capita. This study examines one of those federal transfer programs, equalization. Equalization is an unconditional transfer offederal funds to provinces eligible for such payments; eligibility is determined based upon calculations of "fiscal capacity" (which is calculated based on a provincess ability to raise its own revenues). In total, from 2005/06 to 2012/13 (the period covered by this study), the federal government has transferred $107.5 billion in equalization, $4.6 billion in offshore agreement payments, and almost $2.2 billion in what is known as "total transfer protection" (the latter two are kinds of "equalization-plus" payments) to nine of Canada's ten provinces.