The Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) was a system of block transfer payments from the Canadian government to provincial governments to pay for health care, post-secondary education and welfare, in place from the 1996–97 fiscal year until the 2004–05 fiscal year.
But unlike equalization payments, which provinces can spend on anything, money distributed through the CHST is conditional and must be spent on health, post-secondary education or welfare.
[3] Legislation such as the Canada Health Act specify standards that the provinces must maintain in order to receive funding.
The amount of transfer payments from the federal to the provincial governments is always controversial, particularly in the area of health care, which is of particular importance to Canadians.
[6] Critics of the CHST, CHT and CST note that the programs have allowed the federal government to interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction by giving Ottawa a power through the threat of withdrawing the transfers to any province that administers programs contrary to federal requirements.