Municipalities are missing out on the full potential of market-based tools!

Municipal governments are facing multiple, growing, and overlapping challenges. Yet, there are tools available to address these challenges that are not being used to their full potential. Market-based policies such as well-designed user fees can help reduce traffic, cut water use, and improve solid waste management, while generating revenue that can be used to fill financial gaps.

These challenges include:

• Municipal infrastructure is aging and faces a growing investment gap;
• Municipalities have limited ability to raise revenues. Only so much can be raised from property taxes. They also often face constraints on debt financing; and
• To attract people and investment, livability is key: cities must provide job and recreational opportunities, ensure affordability, make it easy to move people and products, and protect clean air and water.

It all sounds a little daunting. Yet an under-used policy option might lie at the intersection of these challenges. Municipalities can use market-based tools to fund critical infrastructure and create incentives for individuals and businesses to make choices that improve the livability of our communities.

Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, with support from the McConnell Foundation, is launching a new offering. A unique online course on municipal market-based tools for sustainable development, that will help municipal employees, and those that work with municipalities, successfully design and implement these solutions.

Through five modules that include live, interactive webinars led by experts and experienced practitioners and a series of self-directed, online exercises, participants will learn how Canadian municipalities can practically use a variety of market-based tools. The five modules, each 2 hours long, include:

• Module 1: Making the case for municipal market-based tools – October 1^st from 11am to 1pm EDT
  • Chris Ragan, Chair, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission
• Module 2: Market-based tools for reducing traffic congestion – October 10^th from 12-2pm EDT
  • Nancy Olewiler, Professor, School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University
  • Daniel Firth, Director of Mobility Pricing, TransLink
• Module 3: Market-based tools for sustainable water and wastewater management – October 23^rd from 1-3pm EDT
  • Justin Leroux,Associate Professor, Department of Applied Economics, HEC Montréal
  • Carl Yates, General Manager, Halifax Water
• Module 4: Market-based tools for sustainable solid waste management – November 21^st from 12-2pm EST
  • Lindsay Tedds, Associate Professor & Scientific Director, Fiscal and Economic Policy, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary
  • Andrew Duffield, Director of Sustainable Development, City of Beaconsfield
• Module 5: Securing political and public support for market-based tools – December 5^th from 12-2pm EST
  • Moderator – Dale Beugin, Executive Director, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission
  • Panellists:
    • Mike Buda, Executive Director, Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, Vancouver
    • Josie Osborne, Mayor, Tofino
    • Joe Pennachetti, Senior Fellow, University of Toronto and former City Manager, Toronto
    • Enid Slack, Director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, University of Toronto

The course is guaranteed to provide unique insight and practical guidance on the selection, design and implementation of municipal market-based tools.

Who should attend?
The course is intended for municipal employees, as well as federal and provincial employees that work with municipalities on related issues. It is open to anyone, including students and private sector employees, that has an interest in topics such as municipal finance, asset management, infrastructure financing, environmental policy, urban planning, traffic management, water and wastewater management, and solid waste management.

Registration details:
The live webinars are limited to 25 participants. Register early to secure a spot. The cost of each course is $70, but if you sign up for all 5 modules you save $50. Complete at least 3 modules to receive a certificate! While modules can be mixed and matched, Module 1 is a pre-requisite for modules 2-5 as it is foundational.

Go to courses.ecofiscal.ca for more information and to register.