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November 13, 2018

Baffling financial presentations hamper councillors, ratepayers and voters seeking to hold municipal governments to account, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Show Us the Numbers: Grading the Financial Reports of Canada’s Municipalities,” authors William B.P. Robson and Farah Omran criticize nearly all of Canada’s larger municipalities for numbers that are obscure, misleading, and just plain late. 

*Note to Readers: This is an updated version of the Commentary with corrected rankings for the cities of Kitchener and Montreal

Commentary 524 v3.pdf
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William Robson

Bill Robson took office as President and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute in July 2006, after serving as the Institute’s Senior Vice President since 2003 and Director of Research from 2000 to 2003. He has written more than 280 monographs, articles, chapters and books on such subjects as government budgets, pensions, healthcare financing, inflation and currency issues.

Farah Omran
Farah Omran

Farah Omran is a former Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. Farah joined the C.D. Howe Institute in 2017, while completing her Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Toronto. As a Policy Analyst at the institute, she worked on a wide range of topics, including monetary policy, financial services, and fiscal accountability.

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