The online version of the report will be published soon.
Municipal Infrastructure
This report reviews the infrastructure assets owned by Ontario municipalities, assesses the condition of those assets, and estimates the cost to bring these assets into a state of good repair.
About this document
Established by the Financial Accountability Officer Act, 2013, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) provides independent analysis on the state of the Province’s finances, trends in the provincial economy and related matters important to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
The FAO produces independent analysis on the initiative of the Financial Accountability Officer. Upon request from a member or committee of the Assembly, the Officer may also direct the FAO to undertake research to estimate the financial costs or financial benefits to the Province of any bill or proposal under the jurisdiction of the legislature.
This report was prepared on the initiative of the Financial Accountability Officer in response to a request from a member of the Assembly, and completes the second phase of a three-part project that aims to estimate the financial implications of certain climate change hazards on Provincial and municipal infrastructure. In keeping with the FAO’s mandate to provide the Legislative Assembly of Ontario with independent economic and financial analysis, this report makes no policy recommendations.
This report was prepared by Mavis Yang, Sabrina Afroz, and Nicolas Rhodes under the direction of Edward Crummey and Paul Lewis.
This report relies on information collected, standardized, and estimated by the FAO. Due to data gaps and the lack of a standardized definition of asset condition across municipalities, there is uncertainty around the exact condition of the majority of assets analyzed in this report. As a result, the FAO produced a range of estimates for the municipal infrastructure backlog. Throughout the report the average result of these simulations is presented unless otherwise stated.
The FAO’s methodology was based on the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure’s asset deterioration model, which the FAO further developed to incorporate municipal assets.
The FAO is grateful for the support of numerous asset management and engineering experts in the preparation of this report. While external reviewers provided comments on early drafts, their assistance implies no responsibility for this final report, which rests solely with the FAO.
© Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2021
Municipal Infrastructure, Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, 2021.