Municipalities and Their Budgets

Description

Welcome back to Municipal Affairs.

In recent decades, Canada’s municipalities have seen steady—and substantial—fiscal growth. From 1990 to 2023, local government revenues rose by more than 30% in real per-capita terms, outpacing both inflation and population growth.

But here’s the key question: Is this money being spent wisely? Are municipalities delivering the value that Canadians expect and deserve?

And more importantly: Are they being asked to do too much with too little?

As responsibilities like housing, public transit, social services, and emergency response increasingly fall to the local level, municipalities often find themselves at the front lines of major national and provincial challenges, without the fiscal tools to match.

Today, we’re sitting down with someone who knows this reality firsthand: Tyler Gandam, President of Alberta Municipalities and Mayor of Wetaskiwin. We’ll talk about whether municipalities are truly in control of their financial destiny, what “spending wisely” means in today’s complex environment, and whether the current provincial and federal approach to local governance is fair—or leaving municipalities to carry more than their share.

Stay with us. You won’t want to miss this.

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