The Canadian Municipal Barometer
The Canadian Municipal Barometer (CMB) is a national research partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that aims to understand and improve local democracy in Canada.
What We Do
The CMB brings together researchers from twenty universities and seven partner organizations to conduct annual surveys of mayors and councillors in more than 1,000 Canadian municipalities, as well as public opinion polling and in-depth qualitative research on local representation and diversity, elections and voting, policy making, and multi-level governance.
Why it Matters
Strong local democracy depends on public trust between residents and elected officials. The CMB aims to strengthen public trust by generating high-quality information about Canadian municipalities to improve the connection between local politicians and the communities they represent.
Featured Research
The State of Local Democracy in Canada: Insights from the Canadian Municipal Barometer, 2020-25 brings together the first five years of CMB research to provide a national portrait of how local democracy works across the country. Published by the School of Cities, the report draws on annual surveys of thousands of mayors and councillors, public opinion surveys, and dozens of CMB studies to examine municipal elections, political representation, public policy, and intergovernmental relations.
The findings challenge several common assumptions about municipal politics. They show that ideology matters even in largely non-partisan elections, offer new insights into who runs for office and how well elected officials reflect their communities, and reveal how political values and practical constraints shape local decision-making. Taken together, the research provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the people, institutions, and political forces shaping local democracy in Canada.
Our Partners
