The History Of Municipal Revenue Sharing
About this episode
This episode discusses the Saskatchewan Municipal Revenue Sharing program and its impact on municipal funding across Canada.
There’s a quiet truth that echoes in council chambers from coast to coast: when it comes to stable, predictable municipal funding, not all systems are created equal. In fact, ask almost any municipal leader across Canada, and you’ll hear the same thing—if their province followed Saskatchewan’s lead, their communities would be on much stronger footing. Because in Saskatchewan, they built something different. Something durable. Something that, nearly two decades later, is still widely considered the gold standard for municipal–provincial relations. It all comes down to one idea: the Saskatchewan Municipal Revenue Sharing program. At its core, the Municipal Revenue Sharing program—often called MRS—is a simple but powerful concept. It ties municipal funding directly to the strength of the provincial economy, allocating a portion of provincial sales tax revenue to communities. The result? Funding that is predictable, transparent, and—perhaps most importantly—no strings attached. Since its introduction, that funding has grown dramatically, increasing more than 200 percent across the province since 2007. But behind that success story is a moment in time—a political window, a…
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