Forum Paper | 2016
Participatory Budgeting: The Practice and the Potential
Abigail Friendly
Participatory budgeting is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Several Canadian cities are experimenting with participatory budgeting. This Forum paper describes participatory budgeting efforts in Toronto and elsewhere.
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Perspectives Paper | 2016
National Urban Policy: A Roadmap for Canadian Cities
Abigail Friendly
The 21st century has seen a renewed interest internationally in national urban policies. This paper draws on the experience of countries that have explicitly pursued national urban policies to solve complex and interrelated urban challenges.
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IMFG Paper | 2016
Did the Land Transfer Tax Impact Housing Sales in Toronto?
Murtaza Haider, Amar Anwar, and Cynthia Holmes
The City of Toronto implemented a land transfer tax on real estate transactions in February 2008. This study explores the impact of the tax on housing sales in the City of Toronto and the rest of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
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Perspectives Paper | 2016
A Recipe for Fiscal Trust
Dina Graser and Pamela Robinson
Local governments need to make significant financial investments, and must raise revenues through taxes, user fees, and possibly new revenue tools. But before they can take these actions, they have to build trust to convince their residents that new revenues are needed and will be spent wisely.
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IMFG Paper | 2016
More Tax Sources for Canada’s Largest Cities: Why, What, and How?
Harry Kitchen and Enid Slack
Canadian cities have long called for access to more tax revenues. This paper argues that additional taxes are appropriate for major cities, describes the advantages and disadvantages of potential new taxes, and estimates the revenue from a city income tax, a city sales tax, and a city fuel tax for eight Canadian cities.
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IMFG Paper | 2016
Good Governance at the Local Level: Meaning and Measurement
Zack Taylor
This paper situates Canadian local governance practices within a review of international perspectives on the meaning and evaluation of governance quality. The author finds that Canadian authorities have construed local good governance largely in utilitarian terms, as the efficiency of service delivery.
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Book | 2016
The Boundary Bargain: Growth, Development, and the Future of City-County Separation
Zachary Spicer
Detailing the development of municipal institutions, the original logic behind the city-county separation, and the eventual shift in institutional and municipal organization, this book demonstrates that urban and rural areas have always had a reciprocal relationship and that both play an important role in the strength of the national economy and the broader local community. Focusing on three case studies of separated cities and their counties that still retain strict city-county separation, former IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellow Zachary Spicer reveals how this policy works, what problems it poses, and examines the best practices for addressing growth, development, and sprawl from a regional perspective.
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Perspectives Paper | 2016
Paying for Stormwater Management: What Are the Options?
Daniella Dávila Aquije
This paper evaluates the financial tools available to fund stormwater infrastructure (property taxes, development charges or cash-in-lieu payments, grants, borrowing, and user charges), and proposes user charges as the most appropriate.
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Globe and Mail: Sean Grisdale on the “Squandering” of Public Land Sales
June 7, 2024
CBC Online: Almos Tassonyi on Brampton’s Strategic Reserve Fund
June 4, 2024
Municipal World: Enid Slack on Municipal Finance
March 5, 2024