The great similarity between the Canadian and American structures of school finance conceals some fundamental, constitutional, and structural differences that shape the trends in Canadian school finance. First, provincial governments exercise a high degree of centralized control over education and its finance. Second, provincial governments have unrestricted access to major tax bases, including income, corporation, sales, and property taxes. A third characteristic is the substantial amounts of money transferred from the federal to provincial governments as unconditional equalization and revenue stabilization payments. All these factors suggest that trends in Canadian educational finance are not affected primarily by competition for taxation bases or by constitutional rigidities. An important factor influencing Canadian education over the last few years has been the Edmonton commitment of 1973, which has held down overall levels of expenditures on education. Nevertheless, there is no apparent Canadian school finance crisis or "Proposition 13 mentality." Other trends concern introduction of financial aid to private schools, federal reimbursement for minority language education, the growth of provisions for special education, declining enrollment, and attempts to equalize expenditures by municipal levels or school boards. With the exception of declining enrollment, there are no major issues of educational finance common to all Canadian provinces. (Author/JM)