Search Results for: Fiscal Health

Local fiscal autonomy is the extent to which local governments rely on locally raised revenues for funding and their ability to set their own tax rates. A comparison of Toronto, London (UK), Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Tokyo, and New York reveals that Toronto is less dependent on intergovernmental transfers than many other major cities but, with the exception of London, it has fewer tax options.
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Can debt financing be “green”? On June 21, IMFG post-doctoral fellow Gustavo Carvalho presented on climate financing in Ontario cities, looking at financial instruments and strategies that have been successfully implemented elsewhere, with a focus on green bonds, environmental impact bonds, and green banks.
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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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Hydraulic fracturing drilling - commonly known as fracking - makes up the majority of US oil output. Canada may soon follow. This presentation focuses on the impacts of boom-bust resource extraction cycles on local revenues and expenditures and intergovernmental relations.
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What tools are available to local governments seeking to share the growing risks associated with a changing climate with other levels of government and non-governmental actors?
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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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In this presentation, historian Richard White presents on the history of Toronto’s revenues and expenditures, public debt, regional governance, intergovernmental finances, and more.
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In this video, Toronto City Manager Peter Wallace delivers his annual address to IMFG. Toronto is facing tough decisions in the coming years: does the City have the right toolkit to fund high quality public services and badly needed capital improvements? Do we have a solid foundation on which to position our city-building objectives?
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