Category Archives: Local Government

When Toronto privatized garbage collection west of Yonge street last year, ideologues on the left panicked. They argued that it would lead to worse service, pointing to initial collection delays when private collection began. A local union even created a complaint line. As I argued in a National Post article on the subject, this highlights all that is right with contracting out services: it’s much easier to hold private companies accountable than government. Continue reading →

The Frontier Centre recently released a backgrounder I co-authored over the last few months on the effect of police levels on crime. The conclusion was simple: the evidence suggests that Canadian cities have sufficient police resources. This has predictably ruffled some feathers. I’ll address some of the criticisms I’ve received, though, frankly, most of the points were already addressed in the paper. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

Winnipeg’s private garbage contractor is facing $400,000 in fines for not meeting service targets in the month of November alone. While some will point to this as a failure of contracting out, it actually demonstrates the fact that contracting out hedges against poor performance. Continue reading →

Amalgamating the seven municipalities that now constitute the City of Toronto was quite likely the biggest mistake made by the Government of Ontario in modern history. It was hugely unpopular — 76.8 percent of residents opposed amalgamation — and failed to create the projected savings. As I’ve argued in the past, the City of Toronto, as currently constituted, is essentially ungovernable. Continue reading →