Funding the Canadian City – Book Launch

The Canadian Tax Foundation and the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) celebrated the launch of Funding the Canadian City, a collection of papers by leading experts, scholars, and policy makers in the field of municipal taxation and finance.

The book – edited by Enid Slack, Lisa Philipps, Lindsay M. Tedds, and Heather L. Evans – includes timely research on property taxes, the options for new revenue tools for cities, road tolling and congestion pricing, foreign-buyer taxes and vacancy taxes, and the effects of the sharing economy on municipal revenues.

Through various lenses, the book explores two fundamental questions for Canadian cities: How can they raise enough revenue to deliver high-quality public services and infrastructure? And how can they address their modern challenges in ways that create a competitive advantage to attract and retain businesses and residents?

On May 6, two of the editors of Funding the Canadian City, Lisa Philipps and Heather L. Evans, and one of the book’s contributors, Harry Kitchen, introduced the book and offered their perspectives on these questions. A reception followed where copies of the book were available for purchase.

Speakers

Heather L. Evans is currently the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Tax Foundation. A member of the Ontario Bar, she practised tax law for several years prior to joining Deloitte Canada, where she was admitted to the partnership in 2000 and served as National Managing Partner, Tax, from 2012 to 2016. An active speaker and writer on tax matters, Heather is a member of the Ontario Bar Association, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. She has also taught at Western Law School and at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Lisa Philipps is Provost & Vice-President Academic of York University, and a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987 and practiced tax law in Toronto before starting her academic career at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law. On faculty at Osgoode since 1996, Professor Philipps has taught a range of tax law and policy courses and has published widely on topics such as registered savings plans, tax expenditures, income splitting and family taxation, balanced budget laws, judicial approaches to tax law, taxes and disability, and charitable donation tax incentives.

Harry Kitchen is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at Trent University. Over the past twenty years, he has completed more than 100 articles, reports, studies, and books on issues relating to local government expenditures, finance, structure and governance in Canada. In addition, he has served as a consultant or advisor for a number of municipal and provincial governments in Canada, the federal government, some private sector institutions and he has worked on projects in Russia and China. In 2013, he was awarded a Queens Diamond Jubilee medal for policy analysis and research contributions to municipal finance, structure and governance in Canada.