Government Spending

Comparing Per Person Spending and Revenue in Metro Vancouver, 2009-2019 is a new study that finds per-person spending has increased across all 17 Metro Vancouver municipalities by 15.2 per cent between 2009 and 2019, after accounting for inflation. Not surprisingly, there is a connection between high spending municipalities and high tax municipalities, as West Vancouver, the highest spending municipality, was also the 2nd highest taxed municipality in 2019, and New Westminster and the City of Vancouver also ranked highly in both spending per person and per person revenues.

Alberta Premiers and Government Spending finds that from 1965 to 2020, the highest level of per-person provincial government spending (adjusted for inflation) in Alberta occurred in 2017—three years before the pandemic.