When developers don’t cover the cost of the infrastructure required for new development, municipal Councils have two choices for where to make up the difference: Spend less on services, thereby reducing service levels across the board, or spend the same on services by charging more through other revenue streams: Taxes and fees.

This timeline of changes in local authority to generate revenue, as well as the provincial political parties from which additions and subtractions came, contextualize movements in Ontario municipalities’ actual revenue results, 1990-2020.