Stewart, Veronika2025-02-222025-02-222025-01-27Stewart, Veronika (2025). Fiscal Limitations to Government Crisis Response: The Municipal Experience in Responding to Infrastructure Failure, Local Governance Hub Policy Briefs, No 2, pgs. 1-5.https://hdl.handle.net/1828/21338Key messages • Government response to crises is limited by structural factors, including imperfect economic forecasting, preference for status quo, and short-term political cycles. • Municipalities face significant financial constraints in crisis management due to limited revenue sources, reliance on regressive property taxes, and restrictions on borrowing. • Local governments heavily depend on intergovernmental transfers, which can be unreliable and restrictive for crisis prevention and management. • The infrastructure crisis in Canada, exemplified by Prince Rupert's water system failure, highlights the fiscal limitations of local governments in addressing predictable crises. • Recommendations to improve municipal crisis response include broadening taxation powers, increasing intergovernmental transfers, and granting more financial flexibility to local governments.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalOther