This collection of papers by leading experts, emerging scholars, and policy makers in the field of municipal taxation and finance sets out the financial challenges facing municipalities in Canada today and examines various practical means of navigating these challenges.
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Across North American cities, the demand for better public transit is pervasive, yet many local governments lack sufficient revenue to finance the construction of new infrastructure. To resolve this dilemma, some localities have turned to citizens directly, proposing temporary, earmarked, sales tax increases as a way to finance capital-intensive projects. Why have some communities been more receptive to this funding model than others? This study addresses this question by comparing the recent experiences of Los Angeles County (2008), where a ballot measure to raise money for transportation was successful and Metro Vancouver (2015), where a similar public vote was unsuccessful.
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Whether institutional constraints are desirable is a debate that may alternatively be framed as one over the merits of local government autonomy. This paper contributes to this debate by empirically analysing the effects of local government autonomy on several outcomes, including the size of government, the ownsource revenue mix, and fiscal sustainability.
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Ontario’s Development Charges Act (DCA) provides the legal framework within which municipalities recover growth-related capital costs from the new development giving rise to such costs. While the purpose of the DCA is to ensure that growth pays for itself, the way the DCA is designed prevents it from achieving its obvious goal.
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This paper examines the diversity gap in the infrastructure industry, outlining a variety of statistics and indicators that show how women and racial minorities are underrepresented in leadership positions.
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Before the last municipal election in 2014, IMFG issued a Perspectives Paper on Toronto’s Fiscal Health (Is Toronto Fiscally Healthy? A Check-up on the City’s Finances by Enid Slack and André Côté). In that paper, we undertook an assessment of the state of the City’s finances in four areas: spending and services; taxes and revenues; debt and savings; and infrastructure.
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Elections are a time to assess what has happened in our community since the last election and ask questions – often uncomfortable questions – about the places we live and the environment we are creating for those who live here. In the lead-up to the 2018 Ontario municipal election, the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance has commissioned a series of short pre-election papers to add to the dialogue and tap into the ideas of some of the GTHA’s most respected leaders. As you read these short papers, you will see that we have covered a wide range of themes – transportation, housing, homelessness, youth, neighbourhoods, Indigenous peoples, mental health, decent work, policing, universities, arts and culture, and regional and local governance.
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In 1998, Metropolitan Toronto and its six lower-tier municipalities – Toronto, Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York, East York, and York – were amalgamated to form the new City of Toronto. The decision to amalgamate was controversial. Proponents argued that streamlining service delivery would yield major cost savings for the city and its residents. Opponents claimed that eliminating Metro’s lower-tier municipalities would diminish the quality of democratic representation.
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