Media Release – Municipal Transparency Improving Across Canada: Sixth Annual Local Government Performance Index

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has today released the sixth annual edition of its influential Local Government Performance Index. The Index ranks the top 100 Canadian cities on their financial transparency and performance over the 2011 financial year.

Since the first edition in 2007, the comprehensive annual report encouraged municipal governments across Canada to implement more effective and standardised financial reporting. This year’s report is no different, as Index scores have improved right across the country. Many cities have scored very highly by providing generously informative reporting, though a few cities still only provide minimal detail and have seen their rankings fall this year.

Hosted at www.lgpi.ca, and measuring more than 27.000 individual data points, the Index is designed to shed light on how Canada’s largest municipalities are performing in comparison to others in their province and across the country. For the first time, the top 100 cities include the largest cities in Quebec, as well as the capitals of all provinces and territories.

In addition to ranking cities based on transparency, the Index also features an extensive database of financial data from the audited financial statements of all 100 cities. In conjunction with the latest census data, this enables the Index to present absolute, per person and per household figures for a large variety of data points – everything from taxes and debt levels to spending on transport and salaries.

Ranking highlights:
 

Markham becomes the first Ontario city ever to be ranked 1^st, jumping up 13 places since last year.

Regina climbs nine places to tie for 3^rd, the best ever rank for a Saskatchewan city.

Toronto has its best ever result climbing 17 places to finish tied for 5^th.

Whitehorse scores the best of the Territories’ capitals, tying for 9^th in only its first year in the Index.

Waterloo is the most improved city climbing forty places from 71^st to 31^st.

Kelowna, the top ranked city for 2009 and 2010, loses its title despite still scoring higher than two years ago – a reflection on the improved reporting across the board.
 

The full ranking of all 100 cities, including 27 new cities for this edition, is available here:

http://www.lgpi.ca/news/lgpi-2011-released

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For media enquiries and further information, please contact:

Peter McCaffrey
Policy Analyst, LGPI Co-ordinator
Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Mr. McCaffrey is available for interview in person in:

Regina, SK on Mon 11^th & Tue 12^th Feb
Toronto, ON on Wed 13^th & Thu 14^th Feb

Or by phone and email at any time:

peter.mccaffrey@fcpp.org
1 306 501 9594