AIMS // Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

In Put Our Money Where Our Mouths Are, AIMS Author Juanita Spencer considers a model of equalization that would strengthen municipalities and make people, not provinces, the recipients.

In the next step in AIMS' Municipal Report Card project, "Measuring Up . . . or Not" is an interim report for Nova Scotia municipalities. It provides information on how municipalities spend our tax dollars, and invites Nova Scotians to comment. The final report with grades and ranks will be published later this year.

In the first step in AIMS' Municipal Report Card project, "Having Your Say" is an interim report for New Brunswick municipalities. It provides information on how municipalities spend our tax dollars, and invites New Brunswickers to comment. The final report with grades and ranks will be published later this year.

AIMS’ Urban Futures initiative is exploring how municipalities of all sizes can become more efficient and provide better service. Using the Greater Saint John region of New Brunswick as an illustration, this paper reflects on how small and medium size municipalities can improve the quality of services for residents and value for money for taxpayers. The municipalities in the Saint John region have made considerable progress toward increasing the level of competitive local government services delivery but they could do more says AIMS’ latest Urban Futures paper. Dr. Robert Bish, author of “Organization and Opportunities: local government services production in Greater Saint John” says that, “…the key is competition, which, through smarter thinking and more careful management, leads to higher productivity.”

In this paper, AIMS Author Juanita Spencer explains how property taxes are just a badly designed income tax. Spencer considers the proposition of a municipal income tax in light of national and international experiences and by applying Adam Smith’s four maxims on taxation: Equity, Certainty, Convenience and Efficiency.

This report, featured in Macleans magazine, grades the performance of 31 of Canada's largest cities and capitals. The results help tell us whether we get value for the money we spend in municipal taxes.

Property taxes, municipal services, increasing costs, bigger potholes - all are part of the reality of today's urban centre. This paper examines taxation in the Halifax Regional Municipality and recommends how municipal taxation can be more efficient and accountable.

The idea of providing municipal public services through competitive tendering - or “contestability” - became popular in the 1950s when cities in southern California began to recognize its inherent advantages. Now, Britain routinely uses competitive tendering at the local government level, and it is a successful facet of municipal services delivery in such big US cities as Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. These policies have produced results - the cities using them have experienced significant improvements over traditional methods in the safe and efficient delivery of government services. In the 5th paper of AIMS Urban Futures Series, Andrea Mrozek and Don McIver make the Canadian case for contestability.

The federal government has no constitutional right to give cities access to new revenue sources and financing instruments, and should not participate with cities in revenue-sharing programs concludes Professor Harry Kitchen, author of Financing City Services: A prescription for the future, the latest paper in AIMS’ Urban Futures Series. Cities have become increasingly important players in the competitive global economy and have seen a dramatic increase in reliance on own-source revenues over the past 12 to 15 years. The result is the current call for a massive influx of federal dollars under a renewed national “cities agenda”, but Kitchen concludes that there is much the cities could do to put their own houses in order including changing assessment practices, improving development charges and replacing provincial gas taxes with municipal charges. Read his full paper to discover how cities can make it on their own.

A world leader in smart growth has been Portland, Oregon. Many urban planners view Portland as a model for limiting sprawl. In the latest paper in AIMS’ Urban Futures project, “Smart Growth”: Threatening the quality of life, author Wendell Cox challenges the many assumptions promoted by smart growth advocates. He argues the evidence is mounting that Portland’s smart growth policies simply don’t work.

Along with healthcare and taxation, a "new deal for cities" has become a theme of the 2004 federal election. This restructuring of the relationship between Ottawa and Canada’s municipalities has moved to centre stage, but are the arguments being put forward for new senior government intervention in the life of the country’s cities sound?