When Toronto's Ward Boundary Review (WBR) began in 2013, the city's 44 wards varied widely in size, ranging from 45,000 to 90,000 residents. This paper sets out the contested legal terrain within which the City of Toronto’s WBR took place and assesses possible next steps, including the grounds for a possible Ontario Municipal Board appeal.
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Financial investments are an important part of the fiscal tools available to Canadian municipalities. A well-executed investment strategy can provide a source of income to municipalities, helping them prepare for future budgetary pressures and revenue fluctuations. This paper describes how the current municipal investment regime in Ontario works and its future direction and challenges.
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The Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) at the University of Toronto and the Institute without Boundaries (IwB) at George Brown College have worked together on a data visualization pilot project that brings municipal finance data to life. Leveraging the municipal finance expertise of IMFG and the design experience of the IwB and School of Design at George Brown College, this collaborative project is intended to highlight key issues in Ontario’s municipal finance and illuminate them in compelling and accessible ways.
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The often hidden, but very important, relationship between the municipal council and the public service is a key determinant of the success of any municipality. This paper offers some suggestions for positive ways in which the CAO model can develop and warns of some clouds on the horizon that could harm the Canadian municipal government system.
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This paper argues that municipal accountability officers in Canada can and do address many problems and dilemmas, but they can also create problems of their own. Accountability officers have limited formal authority, but considerable power to influence public opinion. The most important function of accountability officers is to provide citizens with the kind of information they need in order to make intelligent electoral choices.
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With a focus on urban flooding, this paper identifies and explains ways in which governments can share climate-related risks. It then evaluates whether and how these tools have been used in Calgary, Alberta, and Toronto, Ontario.
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City governments in Toronto, New York City, and Los Angeles have each set ambitious GHG reduction targets, and developed programs and policies to reach these targets. This paper draws on their experiences and identifies steering strategies that have proven effective in all three cities.
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This paper argues that additional taxes are entirely appropriate for major cities and estimates the potential revenue that some of these taxes could generate in eight Canadian cities – Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, and Halifax.
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