Browse Our Research 

Can cities in Canada rely on the revenues generated by tax increment financing (TIF)? What are the mechanics of assessing the uplift from a TIF before a project is implemented? How much money has it actually raised in practice?
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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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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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This talk presents findings from a new book about the peculiarities of city-county separation. What are the dangers of having municipal institutions that are too rigid to modernize, and what does it mean for the future of regional governance in Ontario?
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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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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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IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellow Abigail Friendly compares the use of LVC in two cities – São Paulo and Toronto – with a focus on acquiring local benefits and services such as park improvements, childcare and recreational facilities, and social housing.
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In this presentation, Professor Karel Martens discusses the consequences of “the accessibility turn” - arguing, first, that the assessment of accessibility is not merely an option, but a moral obligation for transportation authorities, and second, that the focus on accessibility inevitably requires these authorities to explicitly address questions of fairness.
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