Public transportation is an important contributor to urban mobility, particularly in Canada’s largest metropolitan areas. Despite the fact that most residents view public transportation as a necessity, there is a tendency to think of it as more of a social welfare...
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has completed the eighth edition of its Local Government Performance Index (LGPI). The Transparency Index (TI) ranks the top 100 Canadian cities on the quality of their financial reporting over the 2013 financial year. Since the...
It was a great night for Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP. The Alberta Liberals collapsed, giving the NDP free run on the left. Having won 53 of 87 seats, the NDP can govern for four years with a comfortable majority. But Ms. Notley should be realistic about her new...
The Alberta election campaign is entering its final week, when many voters make up their mind whom to support, or whether to vote at all. Things become brutally simple in the endgame as primal emotions come to the fore. Two passions rule Canadian politics, fear and...
The Canadian Dream is increasingly being realized in smaller areas For decades, Canadians moved to the larger cities (census metropolitan areas, or CMAs) with their economic opportunities. The latest estimates indicate that CMAs have 72 per cent of the nation’s...
When the Premiers were first called to a sit-down lunch to talk about healthcare with Prime Minister Trudeau, there was plenty of talk about the potential for systemic change, innovation and accountability. It seemed that Canadians and their leaders were finally on...
This backgrounder calls into question the common assumption that an increased police presence would reduce crime levels in Canadian cities
The downtown bridge is being built by Kentucky and the other, known as the East End crossing, is being built by Indiana. Yet while Indiana has legislation that allows for public-private partnerships (PPP), Kentucky does not. So the downtown bridge will be procured the traditional way, and the East End crossing will use a PPP.
Will Chabun reported in today’s Leader-Post that Regina’s crime statistics continue to fall. One can potentially attribute this to several factors: policing practices, community organizations, consistently low unemployment. It is difficult to assign weightings to such factors. But one factor is often left out of this discussion that almost certainly deserves part of the credit: increased population.
Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the twenty finalists for its Mayor’s Challenge, which rewards five US municipalities for innovative approaches to fixing urban problems. The Huffington Post has a feature on the competition, featuring an article written by the mayors of the nominated cities and a video for each of the nominated initiatives.
Recently, residents of Okotoks learned that it is illegal to skate on a neighbourhood pond. People who lived in the neighbourhood since it was built a decade ago were not aware that town council had changed the rules, making such a fun activity unlawful for their children. A town councillor said that she wants to save lives, though no lives have been threatened.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi recently accused the provincial government of treating the City of Calgary like a ‘farm team.’ I’m not sure that was the best analogy, as a pro-sports team can call up prospects from a farm team at any time. A better sports analogy to illustrate the relationship would be between a micromanaging general manager, and a subservient coaching staff.
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.
Councillors have also spent time debating and voting on matters they have no power to actually address, whether it be banning shark-fin soup, opposing the Iraq War, or ending the NHL lockout — just this week, a Vancouver city councillor put forward a motion to write a letter to the NHL and the players’ association urging them to end the standoff (it passed).
Whatever the process for tallying up a $1.4-billion bill, the West LRT still ranks as an insanely costly project, at $190 million per kilometre of track, or $42,000 and change per estimated daily rider according to a review done by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.