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The Canadian Alliance, formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, was a centre-right to right-wing federal political party in Canada that existed under that name from 2000 to 2003. The Canadian Alliance was the new name of the Reform Party of Canada and inherited many of its populist policies, as well as its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons of Canada. The party supported policies that were both fiscally and socially conservative, seeking reduced government spending on social programs and reductions in taxation.
Michael Deane Harris is a Canadian retired politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario from 1990 to 2002. During his time as party leader, he heavily nudged the Ontario PC Party to Blue Toryism, advocating for the "Common Sense Revolution", his government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and budget cuts.
Dalton James Patrick McGuinty Jr. is a former Canadian politician who served as the 24th premier of Ontario from 2003 to 2013. He was the first Liberal leader to win two majority governments since Mitchell Hepburn nearly 70 years earlier. In 2011, he became the first Liberal premier to secure a third consecutive term since Oliver Mowat after his party was re-elected in that year's provincial election.
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada.
The Canada Health Act is a statute of the Parliament of Canada, adopted in 1984, which establishes the framework for federal financial contributions to the provincial and territorial health insurance programs, commonly called "medicare". To receive federal funding, the provinces and territories must comply with the terms of the CHA, which establishes the principle of universal, single-payer healthcare.
A Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) is an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of the Canadian province of Ontario. Elsewhere in Canada, the titular designation "Member of Provincial Parliament" has also been used to refer to members of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1791 to 1838, and to members of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1955 to 1968.
Equalization payments are cash payments made in some federal systems of government from the federal government to subnational governments with the objective of offsetting differences in available revenue or in the cost of providing services. Many federations use fiscal equalisation to reduce the inequalities in the fiscal capacities of sub-national governments arising from the differences in their geography, demography, natural endowments and economies. The level of equalisation sought can vary, however.
Dwight Duncan is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2013 who represented ridings of Windsor—Walkerville, Windsor—St. Clair and Windsor—Tecumseh. He was a senior member in the government of Dalton McGuinty who served in several cabinet roles including Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance.
The Province of Ontario is governed by a unicameral legislature, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, which operates in the Westminster system of government. The political party that wins the largest number of seats in the legislature normally forms the government, and the party's leader becomes premier of the province, i.e., the head of the government.
The orders, decorations, and medals of the Canadian provinces, in which each province of Canada has devised a system of orders and other awards to honour residents for actions or deeds that benefit their local community or province, are in turn subsumed within the Canadian honours system. Each province sets its own rules and criteria for eligibility and also for how each award is presented. Most of the awards allow for the recipients to wear their awards in public, and most grant the recipients the use of post-nominal letters after their names. Not all of the awards listed below are part of the Canadian honours system, thus some of them may not be worn or court mounted with awards that are part of the Canadian honours system.
Canadian federal spending, 2004, comprises the revenues and expenditures of the Government of Canada in the 2004-2005 fiscal year. All figures below are in Canadian dollars, and are reported as prepared by the Receiver General for Canada, in the annual Public Accounts of Canada. The ±% column below is relative to the last Canadian federal fiscal year of 03-04, as noted in Canadian federal spending, 2003.
The Canada Health Transfer (CHT) is the Canadian government's transfer payment program in support of the health systems of the provinces and territories of Canada. The program was originally combined with the Canada Social Transfer in a program known as the Canada Health and Social Transfer. It was made independent from the Canada Health and Social Transfer program on April 1, 2004 to allow for greater accountability and transparency for federal health funding led by then prime minister Paul Martin.
Expenditures by Canadian corporations on research and development accounted for about 50% of all spending on scientific research and development in Canada in 2007.
Transfer payments are a collection of payments made by the Government of Canada to Canadian provinces and territories under the Federal–Provincial Arrangements Act. Chief among these are the Canada Social Transfer, the Canada Health Transfer and equalization payments. The last of these can be spent however the receiving provinces see fit, while the first two are intended to support social and health services respectively.
Canadian public debt, or general government debt, is the liabilities of the government sector. Government gross debt consists of liabilities that are a financial claim that requires payment of interest and/or principal in future. They consist mainly of Treasury bonds, but also include public service employee pension liabilities. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits.
In Canada, the federal government makes equalization payments to provincial governments to help address fiscal disparities among Canadian provinces based on estimates of provinces' fiscal capacity—their ability to generate tax revenues. A province that does not receive equalization payments is often referred to as a "have province", while one that does is called a "have not province". In 2022-23, all provinces and territories will receive $87.67 billion in major federal transfers, including $21.92 billion in equalization payments in 5 provinces.
Hourglass Federalism is a theory about Canadian economic geography and political economy that has been promoted by Thomas J. Courchene of Queen's University. The thesis he proposes is that federal cutbacks of provincial transfers to social services since 1995 has caused significant fiscal imbalances. These funding cuts forced the provinces to make cutbacks in nearly every provincial jurisdiction, except healthcare because cutting healthcare funding would be political suicide, but this left almost every other provincial jurisdiction, including cities which are creations of the provinces, with reduced and often insufficient funding. However, in the meantime, the federal government has been providing greater funds to social programs but they have been bypassing the provinces and giving the money directly to cities and/or citizens. This allows the federal government to fund provincial jurisdictions directly causing the provinces to become "the squeezed middle of the division-of-powers hourglass".