Trends in public finance in Canada /

This paper does not discuss the fiscal imbalance but it does provide an assessment of trends in the levels of expenditures and revenues by all three orders of government, trends that are important in assessing the extent to which there is a fiscal imbalance. [...] Figure 1 shows total municipal spending per capita4 (including operating and capital expenditures)5 over the 16-year period in current dollars and in constant (1988) dollars.6 Although the average per capita expenditures for all municipal governments in Canada increased from $1,039 to $1,734 over the period, when adjusting for inflation per capita expenditures only increased from $1,039 to $1,181 [...] The distribution of expenditures has not changed significantly over the 16-year period, with the exception of social services in Ontario which increased significantly following the local services realignment in that province in 1998. [...] Expenditures on roads (including parking and snow removal) are lower at the end of the period than they were at the beginning of the period as are transit expenditures. [...] Overall, the relative importance of grant funding fell by 30 percent from the beginning of the period.8 When the growth in municipal revenues is measured in constant dollars per capita, total revenues grew at an average annual rate of 0.7 percent, which is less than the 0.9 percent growth rate for expenditures noted above.