Priorities—Municipal Bond Initiative

Aerial view of a small town with tree-lined streets, homes, businesses, and surrounding farmland.

Ontario faces a $44.34 billion municipal infrastructure backlog, and small and medium municipalities often cannot access capital markets efficiently on their own. Good Roads has designed the Ontario Municipal Finance Corporation, a non-profit lender that would pool municipal borrowing and issue bonds to institutional investors, giving smaller municipalities capital at below-market rates. A modest provincial investment of $76.1 million over 30 years would unlock $500 million in private capital, a 6.57 times multiplier. Proven models such as British Columbia’s Municipal Finance Authority show the approach works. The result is more infrastructure built sooner, without placing the full burden on property taxpayers.