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I am often involved in discussions with people that revolve around the use of their taxes and how fair or efficient that is. In those conversations I hear myself listing all the things that local governments do and how important these things are for creating a high rural quality of life and a functioning economy. This set of Fact Sheets reveals how much of government infrastructure is managed and provided at the local level. With this release of four Fact Sheets we are sharing data from Canada’s Core Public Infrastructure Survey (CCPIS) which was conducted by Statistics Canada in 2017.

There is an overview Fact Sheet, which includes information on a broad range of government assets including transit and solid waste facilities, as well as individual Fact Sheets which take a more detailed look at specific subsets:

Infrastructure Fact Sheets are here: Overview - Public Infrastructure in Rural Ontario Roads Bridges & tunnels Culture, recreation and sports, Roads, Bridges and Tunnels, Culture and Recreation Facilities, including libraries and art galleries.

In addition to the Fact Sheets there is a substantive set of supplementary tables and charts on municipal infrastructure assets. We are encouraged by the efforts of Canada’s statistical agency to tackle this subject as infrastructure, and how to fund it, is so central to efforts to ensure the quality of life and economic vitality of rural communities.

The results from the CCPIS reflect some important aspects of rural challenges. Rural infrastructure is typically older and/or in poorer condition suggesting more revenue needs to be raised from the local tax base sooner than in larger urban centres. The analysis highlights the fact that rural places have more recreation facilities per 100,000 population. This may sound positive, but actually means they are supported by a smaller user base with a corresponding lower user fee/property tax revenue opportunities. Any reader taking a deeper dive into the Fact Sheets would also see that transit assets don’t start showing up until the population size goes over 10,000. The reverse is true for solid waste facilities where the prevalence of those types of facilities is higher in rural and small town areas. These types of insights aren’t going to be startling revelations to keen observers of the municipal context but we think the data will be very useful in supplying the evidence behind these realities. We hope you can make use of this information and would be very appreciative of feedback from you about the value of the information and if you are able to use it, please get in touch at: info@ruralontarioinstitute.ca. Please note: This is the first time we have explored this data. Unlike other data sets from Statistics Canada, it does not lend itself well to the three types of geography we usually present in order to distinguish rural trends and conditions from urban results.

Our Fact Sheets typically group Census Division and Census Subdivision level data into Metropolitan, Partially Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan categories. However, the CCPIS data was assigned based on the address location of the reporting municipality. For example, a County such as Wellington, with its head office in Guelph, is assigned to the Large Urban Centre geography of Guelph despite the fact its infrastructure serves rural areas.

The Rural Ontario Institute intends to work with AMO/ROMA and provincial ministries to raise the possibility with Statistics Canada that there would be value in structuring the data so different types of geographic disaggregation is easier to do. Focus on Rural Ontario Fact Sheets are based on Statistics Canada data and are part of a long-running series that profile key facts and figures on topics such as population change, immigration/migration patterns, youth employment and economic trends. All Focus on Rural Ontario Fact Sheets are available for download at www.ruralontarioinstitute.ca/knowledge-centre/focus-on-rural-ontario.">Fact Sheets reveals how much of government infrastructure is managed and provided at the local level.  

With this release of four Fact Sheets we are sharing data from Canada’s Core Public Infrastructure Survey (CCPIS) which was conducted by Statistics Canada in 2017. There is an overview Fact Sheet, which includes information on a broad range of government assets including transit and solid waste facilities, as well as individual Fact Sheets which take a more detailed look at specific subsets.

Overview - Public Infrastructure in Rural Ontario

Roads

Bridges & tunnels 

Culture, recreation and sports 

In addition to the Fact Sheets there is a substantive set of supplementary tables and charts on municipal infrastructure assets. 

We are encouraged by the efforts of Canada’s statistical agency to tackle this subject as infrastructure, and how to fund it, is so central to efforts to ensure the quality of life and economic vitality of rural communities. 

The results from the CCPIS reflect some important aspects of rural challenges. Rural infrastructure is typically older and/or in poorer condition suggesting more revenue needs to be raised from the local tax base sooner than in larger urban centres. The analysis highlights the fact that rural places have more recreation facilities per 100,000 population. This may sound positive, but actually means they are supported by a smaller user base with a corresponding lower user fee/property tax revenue opportunities. Any reader taking a deeper dive into the Fact Sheets would also see that transit assets don’t start showing up until the population size goes over 10,000. The reverse is true for solid waste facilities where the prevalence of those types of facilities is higher in rural and small town areas.   

These types of insights aren’t going to be startling revelations to keen observers of the municipal context but we think the data will be very useful in supplying the evidence behind these realities. We hope you can make use of this information and would be very appreciative of feedback from you about the value of the information and if you are able to use it, please get in touch at: info@ruralontarioinstitute.ca.

Please note: This is the first time we have explored this data. Unlike other data sets from Statistics Canada, it does not lend itself well to the three types of geography we usually present in order to distinguish rural trends and conditions from urban results. Our Fact Sheets typically group Census Division and Census Subdivision level data into Metropolitan, Partially Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan categories. However, the CCPIS data was assigned based on the address location of the reporting municipality. For example, a County such as Wellington, with its head office in Guelph, is assigned to the Large Urban Centre geography of Guelph despite the fact its infrastructure serves rural areas. The Rural Ontario Institute intends to work with AMO/ROMA and provincial ministries to raise the possibility with Statistics Canada that there would be value in structuring the data so different types of geographic disaggregation is easier to do. 

Focus on Rural Ontario Fact Sheets are based on Statistics Canada data and are part of a long-running series that profile key facts and figures on topics such as population change, immigration/migration patterns, youth employment and economic trends. All Focus on Rural Ontario Fact Sheets are available for download at www.ruralontarioinstitute.ca/knowledge-centre/focus-on-rural-ontario.

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