In 2023, on average, Canadian municipalities spent $5,851 per person annually.Shocked? In comparison with 2000 average annual local government expenditures — $4,673 per person — the increase should be a bit alarming.This is according to the Fraser Institute's Jake Fuss, Director of Fiscal Studies and Austin Thompson, Senior Policy Analyst, who say this 25% increase since the 21st century does not match inflation. Knowing this, Fuss and Thompson ask:"How would your life improve if you and every member of your family had an extra $1,178 per year?"That's something for Canadians themselves to determine, with a bit more information from Thompson....What is also quite noteworthy — the $170 billion in infrastructure backlog municipalities have admitted to having accumulated.Municipalities often use this to claim they are "chronically underfunded," but Fuss and Thompson point out, "They’re eager to claim this is evidence they need yet more taxpayer dollars, when it’s in fact evidence of inefficient and poorly prioritized spending."Fuss and Thompson say, "Canadians across the country should judge for themselves whether this rise in spending has improved the quality of local government services."However, they also point to the stagnation of many municipal services in different cities across the country — citing commute times, road and public infrastructure, and rising violent and property crime rates..Thompson tells the Western Standard that Canadians should look out for their municipalities overspending: "What I found in my study is that local governments and specifically municipalities have increased their spending per person over time faster than the rate of inflation.""And yet even while they have had this increased spending, they have allowed an infrastructure deficit, a rather large one to increase.""And so I think it's incumbent upon Canadian taxpayers to ask difficult questions about city hall — why are you spending more per person, at a faster rate than the growth and inflation, and yet have allowed local infrastructure, one of your core responsibilities to fall by the wayside," he states.To unravel further the overspending of municipalities, check out the clip above.
