Centre for Civic Governance

The Centre for Civic Governance works to support community leadership meeting today’s social and environmental challenges: climate change, Canada’s increasing equity gap, and shifting social trends. At the Centre for Civic Governance, our goal is to strengthen Canadian communities through sharing best practices, providing tools for locally elected leaders, and progressive policy analysis. We strive to provide knowledge and information to make real and positive social change.

New Report from the Pembina Institute Looks at What It Will Take for BC to Meet Its Climate Change Goals

Mind the Gap, a November 2007 report from the Pembina Institute, looks at the BC government’s plan to reduce emissions by 33 per cent by 2020. This 33 per cent goal means a reduction of 36 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. However, according to the Pembina Institute, the policies and actions announced by the government so far will only result in a reduction of 5 million tonnes.

Mind the Gap looks at six different sectors and makes recommendations for how the government might close the gap between what it has pledged to do and what it has done so far.

You can check it out here.

Getting This City Back on Track

An opinion piece from the Toronto Star, written by Martin Connell, asks, “What could $1.1 billion do for Toronto?”

The Conference Board of Canada says that Toronto needs to spend this much, above the current budget, in order to start ‘getting this city back on track’. Connell argues that this isn’t a huge sum of money, compared to the enormous benefits the city would experience. Read the article.

Towards a More Democratic and Credible BC Budget

This report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives details problems with BC’s budgeting methodolgy, in particular the problems associated with huge “surprise” surpluses. The report contains a useful table showing healthcare, social services, and education expenditures as a percentage of GDP. Check it out here.

Cities Get a Raw Deal, Most Ontarians Say

A  Centre for Civic Governance poll reveals “71.1 per cent of Ontarians think provincial and federal governments should provide local politicians with “more regular and more flexible sources of funds.”

Read the article in the Toronto Star here.

Local governments should have a bigger piece of the pie

Local government officials meet at the Union of BC Municipalities the week of September 24th through 28th. Climate change, increased social challenges and aging infrastructure will be hot topics.

The public is on their side. Polling by the Columbia Institute Centre for Civic Governance shows that British Columbians trust their local politicians twice as much as federal politicians and one and a half time times more than provincial politicians. The numbers are even stronger in Ontario.

The polling also shows that 65% of people in BC and 53% in Ontario are prepared to pay more taxes to support action on climate change. 69% of people in BC and 71% of people in Ontario want senior levels of government to give local governments more regular and more flexible funding.

“Local governments right now get only 8% of tax revenue in Canada. 92% of tax revenue goes to Provincial and Federal coffers, and yet local governments make decisions that impact at least 50% of carbon emissions: the most serious threat to global warming”, said Columbia Institute Executive Director Charley Beresford.

“Local governments are dealing with the impact of sky-high housing costs, aging infrastructure and changing economies. They’re the closest to the ground and very well positioned to take steps against global warming, but they’re hamstrung by lack of resources. They need a better deal”, said former BC Premier and Chair of the Federal Government’s recent task force on cities, Michael Harcourt.”

DOWNLOAD: Presentation of our 2007 BC Polling

DOWNLOAD: Presentation of our 2007 Ontario Polling

Polling was conducted by Strategic Communications March 15-27, 2007 and June 5-11, 2007 in BC and Ontario. The results are accurate within plus or minus 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.