Digital Dilemmas: Technology, Governance, and Canadian Municipalities summarizes findings from three panel discussions from the winter and spring of 2022 focusing on the platform economy, smart city technology, and cyberattacks as well as the relevant literature, providing direction for municipal leaders hoping to chart a course for their organizations through this uncertain landscape.
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New report focuses on the role of Canadian municipalities play in the fight against climate change, and how that role can complement and be supported by other orders of government.
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In the final paper of the IMFG’s Urban Project series, Tomas Hachard explores how Canada’s intergovernmental infrastructure could be reformed to include municipalities. Drawing on an analysis of how other countries have made space for municipalities in their intergovernmental processes, the paper offers four approaches to intergovernmental reform in Canada from eliminating unfunded mandates to strengthening trilateral relations.
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The three papers in this report identify where municipalities currently face constraints, how other orders of government can support municipalities, and where intergovernmental cooperation is needed.  
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Over the last several decades, municipalities have increasingly relied on the private sector to help build affordable housing. Julie Mah analyzes and maps the affordable housing outcomes achieved in Toronto through Section 37 agreements. Between 1988 and 2018, the ad hoc use of Section 37 generated a limited number of affordable units. However, as the city implements a new inclusionary zoning policy in November 2021, Mah’s analysis of where, how many, and what type of affordable units were produced through Section 37 agreements creates a baseline against which the new approach can be evaluated
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The four papers in this report identify the ideal role of municipalities in housing policy, where municipalities currently face constraints, how other orders of government can support municipalities, and where intergovernmental cooperation is needed.
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As part of Ontario 360’s Transition Briefings, IMFG Manager of Programs and Research Tomas Hachard and IMFG Director Enid Slack write about how an incoming provincial government can tailor municipal governance and provincial-municipal relations to address major policy challenges that require significant intergovernmental cooperation.
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New IMFG and Urban Project paper reviews the current state of provincial-municipal equalization transfers in Canada and suggests ways to improve their design. Arguing that no province provides adequate equalization for municipalities, the authors take a critical look at the mechanics of such a transfer, and how it should ideally operate. Issues that first need to be resolved range from determining how local needs are calculated to ascertaining how municipal fiscal capacity is measured. Slack and Bird conclude with some suggestions for what is needed to devise fair, efficient, and transparent provincial-municipal equalization systems.
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