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1. Municipal spending on the rise across Metro Vancouver

   Municipalities play an essential role in the lives of Canadians. As the closest level of government to citizens, they are often the most visible—from snowplows to police patrols. It’s this visibility, and the central role these services ...

2. A tale of two cities—Vancouver spends far more than Surrey

   Appeared in the Vancouver Province, August 23, 2018 With three levels of government delivering a wide array of services to British Columbians, paid for by an equally wide array of taxes, fees and transfers, it can be difficult for citizens to understand ...

3. B.C. throne speech acknowledges importance of housing supply on affordability

   In its recent speech to the throne, the B.C. government added a laundry list of measures that were not included in its election platform. Regardless of the motivations for this manoeuver, the speech included an important admission on ...

4. B.C. Budget insight: Vancouver’s affordability concerns need municipal attention

   In an effort to make housing more affordable in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia’s latest provincial budget exempts newly-built homes worth up to $750,000 from the property transfer tax. This change could cut the tax bill on certain ...

5. City hall red tape and rising property assessments in Greater Vancouver

   Provincial updates of property value assessments—which determine property tax levels—are generally a prosaic affair, but Monday’s release of British Columbia’s latest assessment has received a lot of attention. More than half a million ...

6. Think local when addressing housing affordability across Canada

   Housing markets in Canada’s largest cities are once again the subject of national news, this time because of an increase of the minimum down payments for government-backed mortgages on homes over $500,000. Although the policy applies ...