June 2026 | Serving More People Than You Can Tax: The Fiscal Impact of Municipal “Fringe Populations
More than 30,000 people live in unorganized areas near a Northern Ontario municipality. Service demands from these “fringe populations” may create financial challenges for municipalities that cannot tax properties outside their service boundaries. This report finds that municipalities with sizeable fringe populations tend to spend more per resident, indicating that in many communities, residents of unorganized areas benefit from municipal spending on services without making an offsetting contribution to tax revenues.
