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F. Omran – Source: Dachis, Robson, and Omran (2017)

How transparent is your city’s budget? Can you find the key numbers? Do they match what appears in its end-of-year reports? Do they show all municipal activities, or just some of them? In this edition of Graphic Intelligence, we grade 28 major Canadian municipalities on their financial reporting in 2017. 

Surrey, Vancouver, Peel and Niagara Regions are top of the class with grades of A or A+, well ahead of Calgary and Durham Region, whose non-reader-friendly information garners a D+. Calgary also saw the worst drop, down from A- in 2016.

For further detail on how we graded Canada’s municipalities, see the report titled "Fuzzy Finances: Grading the Financial Reports of Canada's Municipalities," by William B.P. Robson, Benjamin Dachis, and Farah Omran.